Bubblegum Crisis: The Next Generation part 3
by Purple Knight Saber
Summary: It's now the year 2055. When the Knight Sabers get hired to protect the world leaders at a summit to discuss the Boomer problem, they smell a rat. What happens during the summit, however, will have ramifications for everyone...especially a certain teen.
1. Recovery

Here is part 3, the one with the infamous Boomer summit (well, people seem to enjoy that battle, at least...). Written between January and December of 2000.

* * *

As I look back at the five months since I first found out about Mom, Nene, Linna, and Sylia being the Knight Sabers, I look with total awe. How could I have not picked it up sooner? Nene was a genius when it came to computers; Linna loved athletics with a passion, and looked like she should have been in the Olympics years ago; Mom liked to pick fights; and Sylia, with her cool and calm matter, looked to be the perfect leader for a vigilante group. Perhaps I was just too busy with everything else to pay much attention, what with trying to fend off Masahiro, the press, and not to mention tons of homework.

I recall a time when me and the kids that lived nearby used to play war games. Some would pretend to be Boomers, stomping on their toy cars and trucks, 'shooting' people down with their toy guns. Others would play the AD Police, and quite well, actually -- when the 'Boomers' would shoot at them, they would fall 'dead'. And then, of course, a few of us played the Sabers, coming in when the 'ADP' were all dead and 'kill' the 'Boomers'. What I think is ironic now is that, whenever I had a chance to play as one of the famous vigilantes, I would always choose to play as the blue one, who happened to be my own mother, I found out. The other kids would always ask why I always HAD to be the blue one, and I would say, "because the blue one's the coolest one, that's why."

And now, years after we stopped playing those games, here I was again, playing the role of a Knight Saber. Except, this time, it wasn't a game. It was real now, and so were the Boomers, the things that almost killed me several times. I was lucky to have escaped serious injury those few times when the tables turned on me, but there was no telling when those same tables would turn completely upside-down...

* * *

"It looks like you're finally getting the hang of it, Yumeko," Nene remarked as I waited for my turn to fight the holographic simulator.

"Getting the hang of what?" I asked.

"Fighting Boomers. You haven't gotten badly hurt for a good six weeks now. And yet...you still can't beat Level Seven." She laughed.

"Gee, I wonder if not even BEING in battle for the past six weeks would have anything to do with that," I said dryly as I watched Mom fight the holograms on Level Nine. She didn't look like she was having an easy time, barely dodging the tentacles as they lashed out at her. I envied her for being able to react so fast. Must have been from all those years of training, I was guessing. _Well soon, I'll be up there on Level Nine, then I'll be able to kick Boomer's asses with no problem, _I thought.

"How's your shoulder been?"

"Fine. There's just a scar there now. It healed up just great."

"That's good. I don't like seeing you get hurt; you're still so young and all."

"I'll be fine. If Mom could spring back from worse than what happened to me, then there'll be nothing to worry about."

Linna sighed. "Yes, but she should have still been more careful. Have you seen all the scars she has?"

"Yeah, she showed me," I replied. "I didn't know she could go through all that and still move around now as if nothing ever happened."

"She's resilient, and so are you. I'd say if scars were considered badges of honor, then she'd have more pride than the rest of Tokyo combined," Nene joked. I frowned at her. She threw up her hands as if surrendering. "It was a joke!"

"Thirty seconds left," Sylia said to Mom over the intercom as Mom dodged more of those holographic tentacles.

"Think Mom'll make it?" I asked just as Mom yelled.

"Shit!!" she hollered as a tentacle stabbed her when she attempted to dodge it.

"Spoke too soon," I mumbled.

Mom was cursing up a storm when she came out of the fighting room, her face wet with perspiration, fire in her eyes. "Son of a bitch hologram. God damn thing, I'm gonna break the bastard one of these days..."

"You'll beat it someday, Mom," I said.

She grinned evilly. "All right then, let's see YOU beat that thing for once. And if you don't, let's see if YOU don't wanna rip the thing to pieces too."

"You're on," I grinned. "I don't think even holograms would pull the same cheap tricks twice."

"It's not being cheap, Yumeko," Linna spoke up. "The object is to make you anticipate any moves that the enemy makes, you know that."

"Yeah, yeah, sure."

"Yumeko, your turn," Sylia said, turning to me. I nodded acknowledgment and walked into the fighting room, Mom closing the door behind me. "All right, this is your fourth try on Level Seven. Just try to concentrate on the hologram and the hologram alone. Don't let any outside events disturb you. Just concentrate on hitting the middle."

_What does she think I've BEEN doing each time? _I wondered.

"You can do it!" Nene cheered. Linna shushed her.

"Three minutes, Yumeko," Sylia said.

"I know," I said.

"Ok. Go!"

The first hologram popped up in front of me and headed for me in familiar fashion, going for my chest. I did a backwards aerial flip to dodge them and jump-kicked it in the middle. It dissolved into thin air and another one took its place. _Maybe I can finally beat Level Seven after all, _I thought as I dodged some more tentacles. I managed to take out the second hologram easily enough; I managed to get through all those tentacles and deliver a swift punch to its torso.

As the third hologram appeared, I noticed my shoulder was starting to feel a little stiff, but it didn't bother me too much. It hadn't really been exercised this much since before I'd been shot by that Boomer. Then, as the hologram approached me, I began to picture it as that same Boomer, and decided to channel all my anger deriving from that event into defeating the hologram. As the tentacles lashed out at me with blinding speed, I did a few back-handsprings to dodge them, then barely jumped over another right after I landed.

"Fifteen seconds, Yumeko," Sylia warned.

My eyes widened. "That's it?!" I yelled. I had to take this thing out quick; nobody would like failing at the same level four times, and I certainly didn't want to fail again. Running towards the hologram, dodging tentacles all the while, I was about to throw a punch to defeat it when my shoulder went stiff again.

"Damn, not now!" I muttered, instinctively grabbing my shoulder. The hologram, of course, took the opportunity to lash out at me again. I tried to jump-kick it, but the tentacle 'stabbed' me through the stomach before I could.

"Eliminated, again," Sylia said. I stormed out of the fighting room, rubbing my shoulder, and muttering curses under my breath.

"Is your shoulder ok?" Nene asked. "What happened?"

I glared towards the controls of the holographic simulator. The damn thing, it deserved to be turned to scrap metal. I ran towards it, ready to pound it in. Linna and Nene both rushed to hold me back.

"Lemme at it, lemme at it!" I yelled, struggling to get out of their grip. "That thing's gonna get it now!!"

"It's just a hologram, Yumeko!" Linna said, still holding me back.

"I'm still gonna kill it!! Leggo!!"

As Nene and Linna still held me back, Sylia just stood there with her arms crossed while Mom snickered. So much for holding back when losing, I'm sure she was thinking gleefully.

* * *

The next day, at school, while the English teacher was lecturing us about the proper way to use verbs -- which I didn't have to listen to at all, considering I'd long been fluent in English -- Michiko whispered something to me.

"Hey, Yumeko," she said. "Are you going to be able to come to the play tonight?"

"_Romeo and Juliet_? I dunno. I have an appointment with the doctor about my shoulder," I said. "He's gonna try and figure out why it's still bothering me." I had tried out for that play six or so weeks ago, and soon afterwards, I saw the results; while Michiko had landed the role of Nurse, I hadn't landed the role I wanted. Disappointing, yes, but relieving at the same time; who had time to rehearse for plays while at the same time having to be on call 24-7 to fight Boomers?

"That's too bad. You'd really have fun."

"I know. But you'll bring the house down, I'm sure of it. I saw you during rehearsal several times, and honestly, you're better than the actors for Romeo and Juliet themselves."

"You're playing with me again, aren't you?" Michiko asked, laughing. The teacher heard her laugh and turned around.

"Something funny, Michiko?" he asked in his not-so-great English.

Michiko blinked as she tried to understand what he was saying; English wasn't exactly what you'd call her best subject. "Uh...no, Mr. Tamaka," she answered back in English. "Nothing...funny."

As the bell rang, he said to the rest of the class in English, "To tomorrow, read page 249 to 255." I slapped my hand against my face; how could he call himself an English teacher when he himself messed up the words all the time?

"You meant 'FOR tomorrow,' yes?" I asked him in English. I admit my English wasn't perfect either, but better than the teacher's, that's for sure.

"Um, yes," Mr. Tamaka said. I smiled; maybe I should've been the teacher instead of him. "See you tomorrow, Yumeko."

"G'bye," I said, walking out of the class and heading to gym.

"How do you know English so well?" Michiko asked in the usual Japanese. "Must've been those years on tour with your mom."

"You could say that," I grinned. "You learn a lot of stuff traveling all over the world." Indeed, I must've been pretty good at my English; it was the only class that I had an A in, not that I cared about my grades or anything. I just loved correcting the teacher's mistakes, which was more often than not. It was my way of teasing him. Plus, it made the other kids totally envious of me. Who wouldn't get a kick out of that?

"Maybe you could come over to my house and help me with my English homework," she said, flushing with embarrassment. "You know I'm not very good at English."

"No problem." I reached my gym class. "I'll be able to come over after my doctor's appointment, ok?"

"Ok," she said, brightening. "I have to go to history now."

"See you tonight."

"You too," she said, turning to walk to her history class. "Bye."

"Bye," I said, walking into the locker room to change.

The moment I walked in there, I sensed something was different. Girls were chatting with each other as usual, but the topic was something unexpected.

"Hey, did you hear about Masahiro?" one girl said to another.

"No, what happened?"

"I heard he hasn't been to school lately because his dad's been beating him up."

"Why's that?"

"He doesn't like the fact that he's 'seeing' a bunch of girls."

I ran to the girls. "What about Masahiro?" I asked to the girl that had mentioned it first.

"There's a wild rumor going around that he's getting beat up by his dad because he won't stop doing so many girls."

"Whatever he gets, he deserves," I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

"It's really serious though," she said. "I heard Masahiro's almost landed in the hospital a few times."

"Like I said, who cares what happens to him?"

"Have you seen him lately? He looks like shit, all beaten up and stuff."

"Haven't seen him for about a week. I wouldn't know."

"You'll see when you meet up with him. I almost feel sorry for the poor bastard." She went to her locker to change into her uniform, and I did likewise. Who cared if Masahiro was beaten up anyway, the way he'd been? He deserved it. I gladly would've joined in the beating myself if I could.

In gym, we were going outside to play softball. I figured it would be a nice change from playing -- ick -- basketball. That hurt my shoulder almost more than anything, what with all that dribbling the ball, throwing it, catching it... It drove me nuts.

"Yumeko, you can play center field, right?" the teacher asked.

"Yes," I said, despite the fact that I knew all that stretching of my arm wouldn't exactly be good for my still-aching shoulder.

"Ok. Grab a mitt and go." I did so, and ran out to center field to wait.

As it turned out, I didn't have much to worry about after all. The other team, to put it bluntly, sucked. They couldn't even hit the ball past infield. Pretty much all I did for most of the game was just sit down in the grass, yawning. At one point, I even laid back and stretched out, the game was going so slow. I closed my eyes and daydreamed a little, mostly about when I'd be able to go back into battle and help Mom and the others fight Boomers. The six or seven weeks since I'd last been in a hardsuit seemed like an eternity. I sighed and imagined my favorite moment in a battle: being able to pump some of my discs into the Boomer and watching it slump to the floor, orange fluids gushing out of its torso...

And then, I was jarred back into reality, a little too suddenly.

I barely heard the other kids yelling, but I didn't think they were yelling to me. That is, until I felt something slam into my forehead. I yelled in pain and sat up immediately, seeing what it was that had hit me; the softball, now lying in the grass next to me. I immediately realized what was going on, grabbed the ball, and threw it to third base, where the batter was now headed.

"Out!" the umpire declared as the third baseman tagged the batter. The other kids in outfield ran to me.

"Weren't you paying attention?!" the boy playing left field yelled at me.

"You ok?" the other one asked.

"I'm fine," I said, rubbing my forehead. "I've had worse than this before. And besides, I got the runner out, right?"

"Yeah, but the other two on base got to score because of you!" the left fielder scolded.

"We're still ahead by eight. Nothing to worry about."

"Ok, time's up!" the teacher yelled. "Time to go!"

"You're lucky we still won," he said.

"Gee, someone's in a cranky mood," I said dryly. "We still won, be happy for that."

Just before I went inside, the teacher walked up to me and spoke. "Asagiri, what was wrong with you out there? You should've been paying attention."

"Sorry, just spaced out a little," I grinned.

"Well next time, get your head outta the clouds and back in the game."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

After school, I went home and looked in the mirror to see how bad the injury was. It wasn't as bad as I thought; the ball had just left a small bruise and a little scrape on my forehead. Guessing from how much it'd hurt, I was thinking I'd have a concussion at the least, but I didn't. After doing my homework, I grabbed a bucket of soapy water and a rag, and went out to wash my motorcycle.

"Damn, when did it get this dirty?" I wondered aloud; I hadn't really looked at how dirty my bike was until now; it looked like it had ran through a huge puddle of mud. I sat down, wet the rag, and started scrubbing. It took a good forty-five minutes just to get one side looking halfway decent. And just for that one side, I had to change the water in the bucket four times. It was frustrating, but it had to be done.

"You look like you could use some help," I heard Mom say from behind me. I looked up and saw her leaning over my shoulder. She leaned a little closer and ran her finger over the body of my bike. "You should be a little more gentle when you clean it. You'll ruin the paint job."

"Feel free to help anytime," I said, dunking the rag in the water and scrubbing the bike down some more.

"Actually, I didn't come out here to help you, as much as you look like you could use some. I came out to say it's time for your appointment."

"When are we leaving?"

"Five minutes. You better go up and get cleaned up before you go. You're completely streaked in dirt," Mom said, grinning.

"Ok."

* * *

"Alright, stretch your arm out in front of you," the doctor instructed. I held it out straight in front of me while he felt around my shoulder with his fingers. After a few seconds, he told me to relax it and put it to my side. He then felt my shoulder some more.

"Tell me, Yumeko," he asked, "when does your shoulder tighten up? All the time, or just when you do certain things with it?"

"It only goes stiff when I'm doing gymnastics, like back-handsprings and stuff, basically just when I exert myself. When I'm throwing a ball or little stuff, it doesn't bother me at all."

"You were told to exercise your shoulder a little bit to regain strength in it after you were shot, right?"

"Yeah."

"How much have you been exercising it?"

I grinned shyly. "Probably more than he recommended. I suppose I exercise it about half an hour a day."

Mom blinked her eyes in surprise while the doctor just laughed. "Well, no wonder you're having trouble! Just cut down on the exercises and the shoulder will be just fine!"

I laughed. "Just like that, huh? Ok."

As Mom and I walked outside to our motorcycles, she said, "I didn't know you were working it out that much."

"I just wanted to make sure it got its strength back, that's all."

"You have to let it heal first, duh. Otherwise you'll just hamper your recovery."

"After all those injuries you had in battle, didn't YOU try to work out right away? Sounds like something you'd do, after all."

"After getting stabbed through the legs and arm? It hurt just to walk around, let alone work out!" Mom said, laughing.

While we were walking along and talking, I accidentally bumped into someone. I pardoned myself and looked up to see who I'd bumped into. Lo and behold, it was Masahiro, of all people.

"Uh, hi," he said sheepishly. His face was covered in bruises, and it looked like he'd cut his lip, too.

"Looks like the rumors are true, after all," I said, folding my arms over my chest.

"What happened, Masahiro?" Mom asked.

"My dad's been beatin' me up."

"Over 'going out' with girls, I heard," I grumbled.

"Sorta. He's saying for me to stop bugging you and the other girls at school."

"He doesn't need to use physical force to get his point across though," Mom said.

"MASAHIRO!!" we heard a man yell suddenly. "Get your ass over here NOW!!"

"Oh shit, he followed me," Masahiro said, turning stark white. How strange it was to see him like that, scared out of his mind. I looked around to see where the man had been yelling from, but I didn't need to look very hard; I saw him running across the street towards us.

"Out of my way," he said, shoving me to the side and cornering a terrified Masahiro against the wall.

"Gee, nice to see you too, Tsubasa," I said sarcastically. Masahiro's dad's real name was Jacob, but everyone called him Tsubasa -- literally meaning "wings" -- because he was so fast on his feet when he ran that he might as well have had wings instead of feet. After I'd first met him, I had a saying: _Hell hath no fury like a Tsubasa pissed off to the max. _Even I stayed out of his way.

"What the hell are you following me around town for?!" Masahiro yelled.

"'Cuz I still need to teach you a lesson about your sleeping around!" Tsubasa yelled back, punching him in the face and sending him to the ground.

"I hope you know that there's better ways to tell him that's wrong," Mom said.

"Priss, you stay out of this," he growled, spinning around on her and shaking his finger at her. "This ain't none of your business."

Mom walked up to him, not scared at all. "Well it's my business now, and I say that you shouldn't slap him around like that, bastard. And you shouldn't have shoved my daughter around like that, either."

I walked up between her and Tsubasa. "Mom, he didn't hurt me too much."

"Yeah, what the kid said," Tsubasa said, shoving me out of the way again, this time so hard I almost lost my footing.

"Kid?!" Boy, was I getting tired of people (and Boomers) calling me that.

"Leave Yume alone," Mom ordered.

Masahiro started to get up again, but his father turned on him immediately and kicked him down again. "Which reminds me," Tsubasa said, suddenly looking at me, "why were you here? Getting a cold treated?" he asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"No," I retorted. "I had to get my shoulder looked at."

"What, you fell from the uneven bars in gymnast class and hurt it or what?"

"I was shot a month and a half ago during that Boomer rampage."

"You liar. Anyone that's shot by one o' them walking tanks would be Swiss cheese."

I pulled at the neck of my shirt, revealing to him the prominent scar on my shoulder. "That enough proof for you?"

He looked closer at it, then stood back. "So you think you're a tough little bitch just because you survived a bullet wound from a Boomer?" He walked closer to me, making me have to take a step back; I didn't like him getting so close. "Think you could take me on?"

_In my hardsuit, no problem,_ I thought. _Too bad I can't use it to waste this jerk._

Mom strided up behind Tsubasa, getting steamed. "I said leave her alone!" Tsubasa spun around on her, and in a move I certainly had not been anticipating, made his large hand into a fist and swung at my mom. As she fell to the ground, almost by reflex, I pulled my gun out of my coat pocket and put the barrel to the back of Tsubasa's head.

"I've never had to use my gun on anybody," I said, my arms as well as my voice shaking, "but if you're the first, then so be it."

Tsubasa froze where he was, Masahiro just staring at me; he'd never seen me with a gun before. "You wouldn't have the guts to fire anyway, Yumeko."

"You wanna bet?!" I threatened, my finger on the trigger tightening.

Mom picked herself off of the ground, her hand to her cheek. She turned and looked at me, then to Tsubasa, her eyes wild.

"See? Your mom's ok," Tsubasa said. I slowly lowered the gun from his head, then once I saw he wasn't going to suddenly attack me or anything, put it away in my coat. He turned to Masahiro and grabbed him. "Don't think that I'm not done with you yet, c'mon." He dragged him away.

Mom walked up to me. "You ok?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Are YOU ok?"

"Oh, dandy," she said, rubbing her cheek and looking down the street at Masahiro and Tsubasa. "I still say there's better ways to teach that poor kid some manners other than using violence."

"I can't believe you let him shove you around like that! That's not like you at all! I wouldn't have taken that kind of shit from him, that's for damn sure."

"Well, let me put it this way; Tsubasa is one of those people that're so nasty that you'd sooner pick a fight with a Combat Boomer than him."

As the two of us drove back home, I couldn't help but wonder why even Mom would take crap from a bastard like that Tsubasa. _I wonder if Mom's ran into trouble with him before,_ I thought, my eyes narrowing at the suggestion. _Even after getting beat up by Boomers ten times, she'd still jump into a fight without thinking twice. Must've been something real bad that I must not have been told yet. God knows she has yet to tell me everything from her early Knight Saber days, let alone confrontations like this..._

* * *

"Yumeko!" I heard someone yell as I was taking some books out of my locker. I turned around and saw it was Michiko.

"Hi, Michiko! How was the play last night?"

"It went great! At the end, we all went out on stage and we got a standing ovation from the audience. We perform again tonight."

"I'm sorry I wasn't able to come over to your apartment after the play to help you study."

"Oh, that's ok. Mom, Dad, and I didn't get home till late anyway."

"You sure?"

"Yeah," she said, looking at her watch. "We're gonna be late for calculus! Hurry up!" She grabbed my hand and yanked me away from my locker, almost before I had a chance to close it, and we both ran to class just as the tardy bell rang.

Throughout the day, kids were talking about the play and how great it was, and how they were going to go see it again that night. I was looking forward to seeing it, too, although I knew that Maru, of all people, was playing the role of Juliet. The thought of seeing her in those medieval clothes made me laugh; there'd be no way she was actually comfortable in those things.

"Maru did a great job as Juliet," one kid said. "Even with your acting experience, Yumeko, you wouldn't be able to pull it off as well as she did. That's obvious just from the fact that you didn't land the role." I ignored him, though the words stung. This was the first play that I'd have to watch as merely a spectator and not part of the cast.

"Ignore them, Yumeko," Michiko said. "I don't think Maru was that good either, personally."

Easier said than done; people were teasing me about it all day long. I almost beat a few of those kids up, I was so tired of hearing about it, and even Michiko almost got into a few fights for me. I told her not to stick up for me, that I could do it, but she insisted; "Friends are there to stick up for one another," she said.

In Japanese history class, the teasing continued, but I tried to just blow it off; I figured that their immaturity gave them nothing better to do.

"Say, aren't we supposed to be taking notes during this lecture?" I told them with heavy sarcasm in my voice as I tried to pay attention.

"Why would it matter to you, Yumeko? You have one of the lowest grades in the class. You couldn't catch up to everybody else if you wanted to," one of the boys snickered.

"And if you don't want to have a lower grade than mine, you better start paying attention," I hissed.

"I don't need to pay attention to learn the stuff, unlike you. You couldn't even get that part in _Romeo and Juliet _even with you studying those lines for hours and hours."

I just about broke the pencil I was holding, my hand was so tight in a fist. I didn't know how much longer I could put up with all the teasing, and was about to lose my temper when the teacher suddenly called me up to the front of the class.

_Great, what did I do now?, _I thought.

"Yumeko, you have an office referral." She handed it to me and I looked it over. It said for me to go to the attendance office, and to bring my stuff with me. I wondered what had happened now.

"Guess I should go, huh?" I said.

"Yes, and take these too," she said, handing me some worksheets. "It's tonight's homework."

"Great," I said dryly, taking them.

After I put everything in my backpack, I picked it up, swung it onto my back, and headed for the attendance office. _What's going on now?, _I thought as I walked down the hallway. _If it's Sylia, she could've just paged me. _When I arrived at the office, it wasn't Sylia that was waiting, after all. Instead, there stood Mom.

"Mom? What's up?"

"Yume, did you forget about your doctor's appointment again?" she asked.

"Wha?!" I asked dumbfoundedly. "Didn't we just—" Before I could finish, Mom dragged me out of the office and to her motorcycle outside.

"Sylia's called a meeting," she said in a low voice. "You didn't think I could come and say that to the school officials, could you?"

"I thought something was wrong when you said I forgot a doctor's appointment," I said, laughing.

"I had to think of an excuse to pull you out. So go get your bike and let's go."

"All right, all right," I said, smiling as I went to the student parking lot. So that's why she hadn't paged me; it would have looked conspicuous and the teachers wouldn't have let me go if the pager had went off and I said there was an emergency…


	2. The Job

"A job?"

Turns out that Sylia had called a meeting because we had been hired to do some work for somebody. Linna said that the Knight Sabers had been hired for many different types of jobs, ranging from bodyguarding to tracking down missing people to tracking down the D.D. I wondered what kind of work we'd have to do for this particular job.

"It seems that the Japanese government has hired us to do some work for them," Sylia said.

"The government?" Nene exclaimed. "I never thought the day would come that they would turn to a vigilante group for help."

"As you all have probably heard, there will a be a summit in two months over what to do about the Boomer problem in Tokyo. And to make sure everything goes smoothly, the government has hired us to watch over the summit and make sure there are no terrorist or Boomer attacks."

"How ironic that only a few months after they started going nuts again, they're having a summit over the whole problem," I groaned dryly.

"It's been planned for a long time. Even before Boomers started malfunctioning again, they were going to call it to discuss whether we really need them."

"So when does the summit start?" Linna asked.

"March 10th, and it will run till March 20th."

I turned to Mom. "That's just a few weeks before your tour, Mom. What're you going to do about all those planned meetings?"

"I'll take care of it," she said. "It's not your place to worry about that stuff. Don't get a migraine over it, ok, Yume?"

I grinned. "I'll try not to. But you've been working on the tour for over a year, and it'd all go to waste if something happened to us during the summit, like a Boomer attack."

"I told you, it'll be ok. Tours aren't a top priority on my list, anyway."

"Sylia, how much is the job going to be paying?" Linna asked, skeptical. "This doesn't really sound like a job you would take unless you were offered a lot."

"It's a bit more than our usual 20 million fee," Sylia admitted. "If the job is completed successfully, we'll be paid 80 million."

I had been sitting on the arm of the couch, and when I heard that, I fell off in surprise. "80 million?? Jesus Christ, that's a LOT!!"

"You ok, Yumeko?" Nene laughed.

"I'm fine. But 80 million just to do some bodyguarding?" I exclaimed, whistling my surprise.

"That IS a lot of money," Mom agreed. "Sounds like a trick to me. Why would they offer us so much money for a simple job like this if they weren't planning to draw us into a trap or something?"

"You have a point there," Nene said.

"I had Fargo check it out. There's no tricks involved," Sylia replied.

"So…the summit begins March 10th, right?" I asked.

"Yes. What of it?"

"HAD to be when I'm supposed to be studying for my finals, didn't it," I said, laughing nervously.

"I've never seen you actually care about your schoolwork before," Linna pointed out, smiling.

"I don't," I said, "but I can't take off ten days from school in a row without everyone getting suspicious."

"You won't have to worry about missing any school, Yumeko," Sylia pointed out. "The summit won't start each day until noon, and by then, we'll already be on our shifts watching over it."

"Shifts?" Mom asked.

"We'll all be taking turns on who will be watching over the summit," Sylia explained. "For example, for one hour, you and Linna keep watch, and the next hour, Yumeko and I will keep watch."

"And Nene gets to monitor things from the equipment van again, I'm guessing?" I inquired.

"Yes. In case something happens, the two on watch will need to be able to fight, and, well, Nene doesn't have many weapons on her hardsuit."

"Rub it in, why dontcha," Nene mumbled.

"You're part of the defense, Nene," Linna said. "So naturally you don't have many weapons."

"I do need more weapons than just a little laser gun though."

While Nene was complaining about her lack of weapons and Sylia was going over the schedule for the summit, I leaned against the couch and closed my eyes. I didn't like this job one little bit. Why should we be guarding some lousy politicians, anyway? They were some of the main people responsible for why the world was how it was right now. Without them, the world would probably be a much better place. What would it matter if we let a few of them get killed?

* * *

As I looked over my homework, I yawned and drummed my fingers on the table. Mom had a good point about whether the job was a trick or not. The amount of money was suspicious enough, but another thing was bothering me besides that: why would the government hire us two whole months in advance? Didn't really make sense to me.

"Whatcha working on, Yume?" Mom asked, sitting down at the table.

"Homework," I mumbled.

"Which classes?"

"Calculus, history, and Japanese. I'd rather take on seven BU-33B Boomers than do this."

"Be careful what you wish for," she joked.

"I know, I know," I grumbled, finishing up a worksheet. "One class done, two to go…" I laid my head down on the table, sighing.

"How about you come with me for a while? Gonna go get some burgers for dinner," Mom said, winking. I jumped up and eagerly grabbed my jacket. "I'm assuming that that's a yes?" she asked and laughed.

We both hopped on our motorcycles and drove down to the nearest fast food restaurant. Mom decided to get a hamburger, fries, and soda, while I opted for a veggie burger and milkshake. When we sat down to eat our food, I saw a familiar redhead walk in.

"Nene!" I yelled with a mouth full of burger and waved to her.

"Yumeko, Priss!" she exclaimed and ran over to our table, taking a seat. "Didn't think I'd see the two of you here!"

"Where else would you find Mom and I pigging out?" I quipped, swallowing my food. She laughed.

"That's quite true," she grinned, then lowered her voice. "Anyway, I was talking with Sylia today, and I convinced her to power up my laser gun, at least."

"Wow, now you might be able to do some damage to a Boomer," Mom joked.

"I dunno," I added. "I still think her screaming does more damage."

Nene's face turned red. "Do you two have nothing to do other than to tease me?" she yelled.

Suddenly, I heard my pager go off. A second later, Mom's pager and Nene's pager went off too. The other people in the restaurant looked at us strangely at the sound of three pagers going off simultaneously. I blushed with embarrassment and turned off my pager.

"As a matter of fact, I do have something more important to do," Mom said, standing up and turning off her pager.

"Whoohoo!!" I cheered. "Time to go back to work!"

Nene groaned and rolled her eyes. "Greeeeeat."

* * *

For the first time in a month and a half, I was finally going to be on the battlefield again. I couldn't wait to get back out there, so I ran downstairs to suit up as fast as I could. Mom and Nene told me to slow down, that I should save my strength for the battle, but I couldn't contain my excitement.

When we got downstairs, Linna and Sylia were just stepping into their hardsuits. They both looked at me curiously when I practically burst my way through the door and changed into my innerwear.

"Excited?" Linna asked, smiling.

"It's been six weeks!!" I exclaimed. "Can't wait to get out there again!"

As I stepped into my hardsuit, Sylia filled us in. "It appears to be two BU-33B Combat Boomers. They're wreaking havoc in Ginza district, so hurry and suit up."

"That's the shopping district, isn't it?" Nene gasped. "Think of all the people that're gonna be hurt!!"

I slipped on my helmet and immediately ran to the equipment van. Once in, I decided to take a look at the dark purple motorcycle that was stored there. I ran my finger over the body of it, my eyes widening with interest. _Should be fun, using this in battle, _I thought, smiling slyly. Mom, in her hardsuit, walked up behind me and asked why I was looking at it. I looked up at her, grinning behind my visor, and said, "Well, I thought I might give this thing a test run."

"Sylia's told you how to use it, right?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Just be careful when you're having it transform. The last thing we need is someone getting injured by her own Motoslave," she half-joked.

"I'll be ok! With this thing, I could probably take on both of those Boomers."

"I had a hard enough time taking on a BU-12B with my Motoslave. I don't know how you'll fare against two BU-33Bs."

"That's why I'm gonna try it out."

"Let's get going," I heard Sylia say as she, Linna, and Nene climbed into the van. As the van starting moving, I climbed onto my motorcycle, ready for the word to deploy.

"Using your Motoroid, huh?" Nene asked, flipping up her visor and looking at me intently.

"Yeah," I said, grinning.

She looked down at her feet. "I'd use mine, but…even with it, I still can't fight. I'd still just be a punching bag," she said, flushing.

"That's why there's a thing called practice," I pointed out wryly.

"Get ready, Yume," Mom said as we approached Ginza, and hopped on her bike as well. Suddenly, I noticed the walls of the van open up, and gasped when the hydraulic booms attached to the bikes deployed outside. _What the…?!, _I thought as I sat there on the bike, hanging there above the ground. _Sylia's planning to drop us like this?!_

"Knight Sabers…" I heard Sylia say over the comm, "GO!"

And with that, the hydraulic booms released their grip on the bikes, and Mom and I went dropping to the street, me almost losing my balance when I hit. As Mom and I went speeding ahead of the van towards the Boomers, Sylia, Nene, and Linna leaped off the top of the van and went by air.

"Nene!" I yelled over the comm. "You try to get the people out of here, ok? This could get ugly real quick."

"Roger!" she responded.

"Let's do it!!" Mom yelled out as she made her motorcycle transform. I stopped and looked around at the scene. I would never get used to seeing this scene; mutilated bodies in the street, cars and stores on fire, and scores of people trying to run and hide. Again, I felt the nausea rise into my throat, but I managed to keep from throwing up all over my faceplate.

"Yumeko! Watch it!" Linna warned me. I looked ahead and barely dodged a Boomer charging at me, ducking its laser blasts.

"You son of a bitch!" I cursed, starting up my bike again and riding towards it while Mom was fighting the other one. She looked like she had the upper hand against it, but then again, she always made stuff look easy. As she blocked some punches from the Boomer, she fired her huge gun at it, putting several nice-sized holes in it, but the wounds weren't slowing it down much.

Right when I reached my target, intending to run it over, it went and grabbed my bike by the front tire, then threw me over its head. I yelled in surprise, still clinging to the bike as a bunch of info went flying across my HUD.

"Where is it?" I asked myself aloud, still in mid-air. "Where's that Transform Mode, damn you!?" Right when I said that, it appeared on the HUD. "There it is!" I exclaimed, grinning ear to ear as the motorcycle started to change shape underneath me. I held my breath and squeezed my eyes shut as the bike seemed to come apart; at first I thought it was literally falling to pieces, but then it started to come back together around my hardsuit, augmenting it and enclosing itself over my torso and arms. _All RIGHT!, _I thought as it completed its transformation. And then, I hit the ground hard, landing on my back because of the fact that the Motoslave had transformed practically upside-down.

"Get up!" Linna yelled as she ran to help Mom, who I noticed wasn't exactly doing as well as I'd hoped, getting pounded by the BU-33B but thanks to the Motoslave protecting her, probably wasn't actually getting beat up too bad. I jumped to my feet and turned to the other Boomer, which Sylia was fighting alone. Running to help her, the Boomer immediately noticed me and swatted Sylia aside, turning to me.

"Bring it on!" I shouted, getting into a fighting pose, which was a bit awkward with all the extra armor around me. I tried to activate the thrusters so I could attack, but this being my first time working the Motoslave, I couldn't figure out how to activate them. _Crud,_ I thought, swallowing hard as the Boomer slammed into me with full force and knocked me back onto the ground. While I was trying to get up, it lifted up its huge foot and stomped on the armor where my stomach would be if not for the Motoslave.

_This just isn't my day!, _I thought as I tried to get up, only to get stomped on again.

Just then, a barrage of lasers hit the Boomer from the side. As it yelled in rage, I turned in that direction and saw Nene standing there, aiming her laser gun. _About time she did something useful,_ I groaned in my head, slowly picking myself off of the pavement.

"Weren't you supposed to be getting people out of here?" I scolded.

"Well, you looked like you could've used some help," she said, crossing her arms over her chest. "And besides, I needed to try out my upgraded laser gun."

Our little conversation was interrupted when Sylia came out of nowhere and jabbed her lasersword into the Boomer's head. It howled in anger as it grabbed her by the arm and threw her into Nene, making them both fly to the ground. Then it turned around before I could react, grabbed me by the arms, and pinned me down on the asphalt.

"I am NOT letting that move get the best of me again!!" I cried out as I bent the mechanical legs of my Motoslave, brought them up to my chest, leaned back, and let out a double kick at the Boomer's torso. Being that it had still been trying to hold me to the ground, the kick was so hard that the arms became separated from the rest of its body, and the Boomer fell to the ground, ahem, unarmed. I stomped over to where it was, flailing about on the ground, trying to get up. Then I jumped in the air and landed on the Boomer, smashing it beneath the Motoslave's feet.

"Are you ok?" Nene asked.

"Yeah," I panted, opening up the cockpit and slowly climbing out. "Man…what a ride."

"Now you know why I never use my Motoslave," she said, grinning behind her visor, I'm sure.

"Don't…blame you for not using that thing."

"You handled all right for your first time, Yumeko," Sylia said. "But next time, perhaps you should pay more attention when I tell you how to pilot it."

I flushed. "I suppose so."

"Where's Priss and Linna?" Nene suddenly asked, looking around.

"There they are," Sylia said, pointing behind Nene. She and I turned around and saw Linna and Mom both delivering the final blows to the Boomer, Linna with her Knuckle Bomber, Mom with the Motoslave's fist.

"And here I was thinking that Mom made stuff look easy," I chuckled. "It took her AND Linna longer to kill that one than it took me to kill the other one singlehandedly."

Linna walked over and slapped me playfully on the helmet. "You had a bit of trouble yourself, you know," she said coyly.

"I was kidding," I said, holding my hands up in front of me as if in surrender. Mom climbed out of her Motoslave and slapped me across the head like Linna had just done. "Hey, don't need BOTH of you ganging up on me," I laughed.

"Sometimes the 'veterans' of this job have trouble too," Mom said, half-joking.

Mackie pulled up in the equipment van. "C'mon, we gotta get going."

As Sylia, Linna, and Mom climbed into the van, I stood and watched as Nene scribbled the Knight Sabers insignia into the asphalt with her laser.

"Veterans, my butt," I joked, aiming the comment at her.

She looked up at me and grumbled. "You say something?!" she yelled, giving chase. I cackled as I ran from her and hopped into the van just before it pulled away. "It's not my fault I can't fight as well as everyone else, you know!!"

"Yeah, you just need to exercise, eat right, and lose a few kilos," I laughed.

"You are asking for it!!" she said, pissed off but almost laughing at the same time. "And I'm not the only one here who could stand to lose a few."

"Whaaaaa?" I drawled. "I do NOT need to lose a few!! I weigh a trim 46 kilos, thank you."

"Yeah, and that's about 46 too many!"

As Nene as I (mostly in play) threw insults at one another, Linna and Mom were holding their stomachs, they were so doubled up in laughter, Sylia sat there with a smile on her face and chuckled, and Mackie was trying to keep an eye on the road AND listen in on the argument at the same time while laughing his head off as well.

* * *

"Morning, sleepyhead," Mom greeted me with as I shuffled into the kitchen the next morning to get myself a cup of coffee.

"Morning," I said, scratching the side of my head while I poured myself a cup.

"Nice hair," she quipped, pointing at my hair; it was a mess from the rough night I'd had, all mussed and tangled. My only response was to yawn loudly as I sat down next to her at the kitchen table.

"I can't believe I actually stomped on that Boomer with my Motoslave," I said aloud, grinning.

"Which reminds me, are you gonna be using that thing more often?"

"No way. That thing's too hard to handle."

"Well, if you had paid attention while Sylia—"

"I know, I know…'while Sylia was teaching me how to use it,'" I finished for her.

"Exactly. In a real battle, if you don't know how to use it, you'll end up getting yourself killed."

"What do you mean a REAL battle? What about the ones we've been in so far these past few months? Those aren't real battles?"

"Compared to some of the ones we've been in, yes." I groaned. _Guess I can't complain about getting a broken wrist, burnt back, and shot shoulder then._

"I know you've been against a fusion Boomer, the D.D., Largo – a couple of times – and some of his Boomers," I rattled off. "But you're still alive, aren't you?"

Mom sighed. "Yes, but that was mostly because I wasn't willing to give up, and because I'm just stubborn that way."

"Thank God you're my mom," I smirked. She laughed.

"Yeah. But you just have to remember to keep your cool, try not to let the pain, anger, or whatever cloud your judgment, and also remember that it's not your fight alone. It's everyone's fight, ok?"

"I'll try to remember," I said, thinking at the same time that she was contradicting herself. Don't let my anger cloud my judgment, eh? Ha, she should've been the one to talk…

* * *

The days drifted by, one by one, and the day of the 'Boomer summit,' as Mom and I called it, drew ever closer. And with each day that passed, my dread grew. Why should we even bother guarding these big-name politicians? It would be a waste of our time, even if we were gonna be paid eighty million yen upon completion. We could get money for any old job, any old time, but this…this was a crock of shit! If the government wanted bodyguards, they should've just hired some Secret Service-type guys, not a band of vigilantes like the Knight Sabers. Sylia said it wasn't a trap for us, but I was quicker to trust Mom's word on it than hers. If Sylia couldn't see a trap from ten kilometers away, Mom could.

"Stop worrying about it so much," Linna told me when I told her about it. "If anything happens, we'll take care of it. The summit isn't for another month." She smiled. "And besides, you're still only sixteen, right? Teenagers aren't supposed to be worrying about this stuff. If you're going to worry over anything, it should be your schoolwork and your social life. Go out and enjoy it while you can."

And when I told Nene about it…

"If you can't stop worrying about it, Yumeko, do what I do! Just lock yourself in the bathroom, and take a nice, long, hot bubble bath. All your worries will just melt away and you'll come out feeling a hundred times better than you were when you went in."

Oh, those two just didn't understand. We were gonna be risking our asses for some damn bigwigs, and they said not to worry, just let the event run its course?! And of course, I couldn't go to Michiko about it; she'd hardly believe that I was a Knight Saber, let alone this…

One day, I decided to go to Linna's aerobics gym to let off some steam. Maybe if I worked out a bit, I could stop thinking about it so much. When I walked inside, it was fairly crowded, but when I saw that the uneven parallel bars weren't being used, a mischievous smile crept across my lips. After I changed into my green leotard and tied my hair back, I walked over to them and looked up. The lower one was about two meters up, the higher one was about three meters up, and they were about two meters apart. It was similar to what I was on at the Japan Gymnastics National Championship the year before. I closed my eyes and remembered that feeling of glory, when they called out my name and announced that with a 9.85 score, I had won, over all the other gymnasts from all over the country!!

Opening my eyes, I took a few steps back, stretched my arms and legs, and ran towards the bars. I jumped up and grabbed the lower bar and swung myself up and over it, let go, did a somersault in mid-air, and grabbed it again from the other side. I swung around and around the bar a couple of times before letting go and, doing a double twist, grabbed onto the higher bar. Swinging my body backwards, I reached my legs up between my arms, did a front flip, and grabbed onto the bar again. I more or less repeated the maneuvers over and over, until my arms, legs, and back cried out in pain from the moves, my face covered in perspiration. After releasing the high bar, I did a triple twist in the air and landed, panting for breath.

"Ah…that felt good," I said to myself, practically wheezing, then looked up. "Huh?"

Everyone else in the gym had gathered at the parallel bars to watch me perform my stunts; I'd been oblivious to the crowd the whole time, and now everyone was clapping and cheering. I wiped some of the sweat off my forehead and smiled.

Linna walked up from behind the crowd, clapping with everyone else. "That was great, Yumeko!!"

"Aw, it was nothing special," I said, grinning from ear to ear and scratching the back of my head.

At an outdoor café a short while later, while Linna and I were drinking cappuccinos, she said, "You looked better than you were at the Nationals last year! You should start training for the Olympics."

"Those aren't till next year."

"It's never too early to start. And besides, they're being held in Nairobi! You wouldn't want to miss a chance to go to Africa, would you?"

"I've been to Nairobi before, when Mom had a concert there," I replied, sipping my cappuccino.

"I know, but it's been what, four or five years since you were there last?"

"Yes, but I don't know if I want to go all the way to the Olympics. It's a lot of pressure for one, and besides, there's our duty as Knight Sabers. That should come first, don't you think?"

She nodded and clasped her hands together. "You're right. But you can't have the Sabers be your whole life. You have to go out and at least live a little bit. You can't be obsessed with them like Priss is."

I frowned at that last remark. "If Mom's obsessed with anything, I think it's over trying to protect me, and not killing Boomers, or her singing, either."

"That's true, too."

"I've been wondering, also, what Mom's going to do about her tour. It begins only a couple weeks after the Boomer summit ends, but if she goes on the tour, then there'll be one less Knight Saber to help fight the Boomers…" I fidgeted in my seat at the thought.

Linna leaned over the table towards me. "You know Priss better than any of us. She's your mother. You should know what she'll do about the tour."

I looked away. "I don't know about that. It's hard to tell what's going through her head sometimes."

She sighed and leaned back in her seat, looking up at the sky. "I know what you mean. It's hard to tell what she's thinking about just by looking at her, but sometimes, even when she doesn't say anything, her eyes give away the whole story.

"I remember the first couple of weeks after she gave birth to you, Yumeko. She was so attached to you, so loving and caring, so doting. You could almost say she was overprotective of you. She'd be there watching you every second, making sure you didn't get smothered in your blanket, or fall off the couch if you happened to fall asleep there. But every time she looked at you, I could tell that she couldn't get the way you were conceived out of her mind. Even now, I know she thinks about it all the time, just from looking at the expression on her face whenever she looks at you."

"Has she told you anything about the attack?" I asked, my eyes getting wide. She shook her head.

"Priss hasn't told anybody hardly anything about it, even Sylia. When we first found out about the attack, she'd only say she got 'beat up,' and left it at that. But when we found out she was pregnant…" Linna got a faraway look in her eyes when she said that. "…when we found that out, we knew she hadn't just been beaten up, like she said."

I sighed. "I've tried getting her to talk about it, but she says I wouldn't be able to handle it."

"Well, maybe she's right. Sometimes people think they can handle the truth, but it turns out to be so brutal, they never recover from the shock. In Priss' case, I think she's just trying to protect you. I think that she thinks you're better off not knowing about it."

"She could at least tell me who my dad is," I grumbled. "I could handle that."

"Think about it!" she said, almost yelling at me. "Would you want your daughter to know who exactly the man that beat and raped you is?! What if you actually know the guy, Yumeko? What if the man that did it was the nice man next door who always opens doors for people and washes their cars? You'd never recover from the shock!!"

I sat there, trying to fathom what Linna had said. She was right, I suppose. If it turned out to be a guy I knew, whether only in passing or not…I'd probably be so far in shock, I'd never come back.

"You…have a point," I said slowly, finishing my now-cold cappuccino.

"I'm glad you see it," she said, sighing. "Now how about I give you a ride home? It's getting a bit late."

After Linna and I paid for our cappuccinos, we hopped in her car and drove to my apartment building. When we got there, I noticed Mom's motorcycle wasn't in the parking lot. _Probably at another one of her meetings, _I thought glumly. After I said goodbye to Linna, I walked up to our apartment, and saw a note that Mom had left on the living room table. It read:

_Sorry, had to go to another damn meeting. I should be home for dinner, but if I'm not, eat without me. I bought some spaghetti for you to cook._

_Love ya, Mom_

I sighed and set the note down on the table. Linna was wrong about one thing: I had no idea what Mom was going to do about her tour. True, there would still be the rampaging Boomers here, but she had been planning it for over a year. She hadn't planned on the Boomers coming out again right in the middle of her planning. If she suddenly called the whole thing off for a reason she couldn't explain, there would be a huge uproar; her concerts had been sold out for months already. How could she pull off a cancellation without explaining it? And if she decided not to cancel, how would the rest of the Knight Sabers and I manage without her?

* * *

"May I ask why the HELL are we planning this now?!" I yelled. Planning the setup of the lights and special effects a whole month and a half before the Replicants' tour was to even begin?! Give me a break. This meeting was a waste of my time and everyone else's as well. As far as I was concerned, we didn't have to worry about this shit until two weeks before the tour, not a whole month and a half in advance!

"Miss Asagiri, our company is on a tight schedule," the supposed sound director said. "We had to move this up so we wouldn't have to worry about it later."

"You didn't have to call us up here to do it! We were gonna do it on our own time anyway, you jackass!!"

He winced at the words. "It's best to take care of it now. We all know how you tend to procrastinate things until it's too late, so we're doing it now to spare us all some time."

I snorted and walked out to the stage. Looking up at the lights, I yelled to the man changing the bulbs and said, "Turn 'em on!!"

"What?!" he yelled back down. "I'm still changing them!!"

"So hurry it up, already!!"

While the lights were being changed, I walked over to the drum set and tested them out to make sure they were in good shape. Then I tested the electric guitar, and winced when I heard some of the notes were out of tune. After tightening some of the strings, they were in tune again. Then I went to the microphone and tested that by singing a few lyrics into it.

"_Arashi no highway hashiri-tsuzuketa togireta yume no yukue sagashite…_" The sound came out loud and clear on the speakers.

"Finished, Miss Priss!" the man yelled, turning on the lights at the same time. Some of the bulbs were red, while others were orange and blue. The combination of those different colors of lights coming down on me was too much. It was horrible. I winced and put my hand up in front of my eyes to block it out.

"Get those red and orange ones outta there!! Get the green bulbs in there!!"

"What?! I just spent an hour changing them, dammit!!"

I put my hands on my hips. "I don't care, change 'em again!!"

"Well, shit!!" he cursed, and began to remove the red bulbs. I sighed and went to retrieve my jacket. As I yanked it on, the sound director ran up to me.

"Where do you think you're going, Miss Asagiri?" he inquired.

"I'm going home, what does it look like?" I grumbled.

"You have to help us plan the setup!! You know what looks good and what doesn't!!"

"You're a director, aren't you? So direct!!" I snapped, shoving him out of the way and strided to my motorcycle. As I drove away, the director looked like the cat had gotten his tongue. He just stood there and fumed.

* * *

As I walked in the door to my apartment, I peeled off my jacket and threw it onto the couch. I noticed a pot sitting on the stove, and when I walked over to it, I saw there was spaghetti in it. Next to the sink was a half-eaten plate of it, and I sighed when I saw it. Yume mustn't have been feeling good; usually she'd eat two or three plates of it instead of just half of one.

"Hey. Yume," I said in a low voice when I opened the door to our bedroom. But she wasn't even awake. She just laid there curled up under the covers, snoring away. I smiled and walked over to her bed. I swept her bangs out of her face and ran my fingers through her dark brown hair. _The poor girl, _I thought. _She's been through so much already._ I almost wished that Sylia hadn't asked her to join the Knight Sabers in the first place. Yes, she was very athletic, and she had that energy of youth, but she was still a kid. She hadn't even been in a real fight other than the brawls she got into at school. Yume didn't really have a clue about what she was getting herself into when she agreed to join, even after I showed her the scars I got during some of the battles. Before that female Boomer had attempted to kill her, she hadn't even seen a Combat Boomer before; she'd only seen the waitress Boomers and garbage Boomers. And yet…only six months after she was asked to join, she already seemed more mature than she had been. She didn't seem to sweat the small stuff as much.

Just as I was pulling off my boots, the familiar beeping of the pager made its presence known. I rolled my eyes and pulled the boots back on.

"Yume, we gotta get going," I said, shaking her gently. She didn't stir. I repeated her name and shook her again. Then, I decided to take my still-beeping pager out of my back pocket, and held it to her ear. After a few seconds, she moaned and her eyes fluttered open.

"Hwah…?" she said, sitting up and wiping away the drool dribbling down her chin with the back of her hand. "What's going on?" she asked sleepily.

"Duty calls," I said, turning off my pager. "Get dressed and let's get going."

After she pulled on some jeans, a sweatshirt, and her tennis shoes, we hurried downstairs to our motorcycles. When Yume stepped outside, she immediately hugged herself and shivered.

"It's snowing?!" she yelled as the flying snowflakes got caught in her hair and eyelashes.

"It's February, of course it's snowing," I answered, pulling on my helmet. "Just get onto my bike with me. We'll save time."

"Ok!" She pulled on her helmet and hopped on behind me, wrapping her arms around my waist. After starting up the bike and letting it warm up for a minute, we were off.


	3. Hydrophobia

"If the Boomers are gonna go crazy, they could at LEAST have the decency not to do it in the middle of a snowstorm!!" I grumbled, pulling on my hardsuit helmet.

"Yumeko, ever heard of the saying, 'Evil knows no night or day'?" Nene asked me. "It's basically the same with weather."

"I can tell."

"Let's move out," Sylia ordered.

On our way to Ota district, where the Boomer rampage was this time, Sylia filled us in. It wasn't one or two Boomers like it usually was. This time, it was four 55C Combat Boomers. _The usual, _I thought, rolling my eyes when she said it was that type that had supposedly gone nuts. Genom could've at least given a variety when it came to the kind of Combat Boomers they sent out. When it came to fights, even this was getting a bit old.

"You'd think after all this time, the Police or SWAT team or somebody would've figured out how to defeat these things on their own," I mumbled.

Nene sighed at my comment. "Yes, but the trouble is that they don't have the funding to obtain the necessary weaponry."

"Genom has enough money, but nooo, they don't want to give the cops enough money to adequately protect the city because they're greedy asswipes." Mom smirked in response.

"Ain't it the truth though," she said.

"Um, Sylia?" Linna spoke up. "I don't think the van's been moving for the past ten minutes or so. What's going on outside?"

Mackie turned to us and answered for her. "Traffic's backed up because of the storm AND the Boomers. You guys will have to get out and head for 'em on foot."

"Foot? Who needs to go on foot when you can go by air?" I said, opening up the roof hatch.

"You honestly think you can use your flight wings without being noticed?!" Nene asked, very skeptical. "Visibility in this storm may only be two meters or so in front of your face, but the light from your wings will give you away."

I smirked. "You're right. I'll just go car-hopping." Before anyone could answer, I climbed onto the roof of the truck, and immediately, snow started whipping me from seemingly all directions. Luckily, my scanners still worked just as well as they would've without the snow, so I could still detect the Boomers, and even the cars in the street, even though I couldn't see them too well, except for the headlights. I ran forward and leaped off the van, landing on a car a few meters down.

"Whoops. Sorry," I said out loud when I saw I'd left a dent in the roof. Putting that matter quickly aside, I leapt to the car in front of the one I had landed on, and then the one in front of that, and so on. I ended up making a lot of drivers angry, judging from the barrage of honks that ensued, but they couldn't actually see what was jumping on their cars, so it didn't matter to me. And since the other Sabers weren't too far behind me, I'm sure the drivers were even more pissed off, especially after the dents in the roofs they'd see once they got out of this horrendous traffic.

Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity of car-hopping, I reached the roadblock. The cops on guard didn't seem to be too happy with having to hold back so many cars, but I didn't have a problem passing the roadblock at all; I just leaped from the last car right over it.

"Hold it!!" I heard a cop yell as I leaped over it and ran towards the Boomers. My scanners told me they weren't too far away, which wasn't exactly a good thing. If they got much closer, the innocent people in the cars would be in the way. I knew I had to drive them as far away from them as possible. And since this place was close to Tokyo Bay, it seemed like there might be some water fighting, as well. I hoped that if I did end up going under, the hardsuit wouldn't freeze on me.

"Damn snow," I muttered to myself; I could hardly see a thing. I put my HUD on Low Vision Mode, designed for such a situation, and looked around. Everything around me – buildings, cars, lampposts – was then indicated by a green outline. After a few seconds, those weren't the only things that showed up on my scanner.

"There you are!" I exclaimed when my scanner suddenly showed that one of the Boomers was just ten meters from me. Immediately afterwards, out of the white fog of snow came a mouth cannon blast. I leaped out of its path and charged towards its origin. The Boomer growled, picked up a car, and threw it at me. I dodged it by doing a few back-handsprings, and the car landed with a crash just mere feet in front of me. _That was too close,_ I thought. If my helmet hadn't been on, I would've wiped the sweat from my brow.

"I'll handle this one, Yume!!"

I turned around and saw a blue hardsuited figure standing there with her arms crossed. Mom.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"There's some other ones near the Bay!" she said. "Get them! I'll take this one!" I nodded slowly and started to run towards east, towards where the scanner said two of the Boomers, Nene, and Sylia were.

I didn't get very far before running into the fourth Boomer, which Linna was fighting. It seemed to be jumping all over the place, with Linna in close pursuit. As it flew in the air, she tried firing a few shots at it, but they missed. She jumped into the air as it sped toward her, and with her Knuckle Bomber, punched it in the chest. The Boomer fell to the ground a short distance from me, orange fluids spilling from its chest onto the snow-covered pavement. I ran to finish it off, but then it got up and grabbed me by the head, taking me by surprise. As Linna yelled my name, the Boomer squeezed tighter, and I tried to pull away, but to no avail.

And then, I heard a huge crack, and quickly realized that it came from my helmet. I knew that if I didn't want my head squished by the Boomer, I had two choices: take off my helmet, or cut off the bastard's arm. I opted for the latter, of course. Popping out the lasersword on my right arm, I raised it and was just about to slash through its arm when the Boomer suddenly picked me up off the ground – by my head! – and threw me. As I was flying through the air, I reached out my arms and grabbed onto a lamppost, swung my body around it, and kicked the charging Boomer right in the chest with my Leg Bombers. I stood there, getting ready for the next attack, when all of a sudden, two long ribbons slashed through its torso. I blinked rapidly as the Boomer – or more like three pieces of it – slumped to the ground and saw Linna standing there.

"Thanks for the help," Linna said gratefully.

"Actually, I was going to go help Nene and Sylia, but well, this took top priority," I said.

She walked over to me and ran her finger over my helmet. "You have a huge crack on the top of your helmet. Are you ok?"

"Oh, I'm ok. It's not that big of a deal."

"We should go help Sylia and Nene now," she said, and using her jumpjets, leaped onto the roof of a nearby building and starting heading in that direction. I followed, but not before asking Mom over the comm if she was ok.

"I'm fine. Just finished the Boomer," she said. "I'll be over there in a sec."

When Linna and I reached Tokyo Bay, we immediately saw one of the Boomers and Sylia dueling it out. While Linna went to aid Sylia, I went down to the harbor to aid Nene, who was fighting – or at least attempting to fight – a Boomer on her own. She fired rapidly at the Boomer with her laser gun, but it kept coming at her, and even though her visor was concealing her face, she looked scared out of her mind. When I arrived on the scene, she breathed a sigh in relief.

"Thank God you're here," she said wearily. The Boomer turned around and focused its attention on me. As it charged towards me, I jumped over and behind it, and popping out my lasersword again, I stabbed it in the back. I withdrew the sword and tried to slash it in half, but the Boomer quickly turned around and slapped me out of the way and charged towards Nene.

"Get away, you jerk!!" she yelled, firing more lasers at it, but the Boomer was unfased by them, and instead punched her in the stomach. As Nene fell to her knees, holding her stomach in pain, the Boomer went to finish her off, but I wouldn't let it.

"You bastard!!" I yelled, speeding towards it. "Don't you touch her!!"

Running towards the Boomer, I took aim at its head with my MDD, but the Boomer noticed, turned around, and fired its mouth cannon at me. I quickly jumped over the blast and fired my laser gun; I couldn't have possibly used my discs on the Boomer when Nene was right there in the line of fire, I had quickly realized. I popped out my lasersword again, ready to cut the Boomer in half as I was coming down, but its next move I hadn't expected.

Just before I would have cut it in half, it grabbed Nene in a headlock and leaped out of the way, and I ended up cutting into the ground instead. I turned quickly, only to see Nene and the Boomer go under the surface of the water.

I gasped. "NENE!!" I screamed. There was no way Nene could last very long in that situation!! I had to save her, whether my suit would shut down because of the water or not. I had no choice but to go in after her.

"Shit, here goes," I said to myself. I held my breath and dived in, immediately launching my flight wings. Instantly, the freezing-cold water flooded into my helmet, and I very nearly let go of my breath, it was so cold. I struggled to keep holding my breath as I ran the scanner for Nene and the Boomer at the same time. After a second or two, it found them: 30 meters down. I pushed my flight wings to their limit, and sped after them as fast as I could. In the murky water, it was hard to see anything, but then I saw them: the Boomer holding a flailing red-and-pink hardsuit. I took aim again with my MDD, and making sure I wouldn't hit Nene in the process, I fired two discs. They both went through the Boomer's right arm – the arm that held Nene in that headlock – and through its torso. It released Nene, and I quickly scooped her up in my arms and sped towards the surface.

The moment we broke through the surface of the water, Nene and me both gasped and started coughing. I set us down on the harbor and let Nene go. She immediately dropped to her hands and knees, practically coughing up a lung, but after what she had just gone through, I didn't blame her one bit for that.

"That…was…too close," she gasped, and coughed again. I chuckled, coughing a fair bit myself, but not for long. Behind me, I heard a huge splash, and turned around to see the Boomer had jumped out of the water and was coming right at us.

"God damn Boomer!! Don't you ever give up?!" I yelled, starting to run towards it, when Mom arrived and slammed into it, kicking it with her Leg Bombers. The Boomer grabbed her by her left ankle and threw her aside, making her yell in surprise as she went crashing through the brick wall of a nearby building.

"You son of a BITCH!!" I cursed, about to go after it, when Nene stopped me.

"Watch your suit power," she cautioned. I widened my eyes; I hadn't thought about that, and decided to check. On the HUD – which was getting a bit fuzzy every few seconds from the water damage -- it said "SUIT POWER: 70 PERCENT."

"It went down that much just from me going scuba-diving after you?" I remarked.

"The hardsuits weren't built for water combat. It's amazing your flight system didn't give out after a few seconds, I'd say."

"As much as I'd love to stay and chat…" I stopped talking, and jabbed my thumb in Mom's direction. The Boomer had only one arm and had a huge gash where my discs had pierced it, but it was still going at it like there was no tomorrow. It was so ferociously swinging its fist and firing its mouth cannon that Mom didn't even have time to attack; she was too busy dodging the attacks. I locked on to the Boomer's head and fired one of my discs. It went whistling through the air, and before the Boomer could react, the disc went right through the side of its head, and out the other side, and it collapsed in a heap on the ground.

"Gee, thanks," Mom said dryly, turning and looking at me. I grinned.

Linna and Sylia arrived on the scene, having done away with the last Boomer. "Well, that was fun, wasn't it," Linna asked sarcastically.

"Best workout I've had in a while," I answered back, half-joking.

Suddenly, we were interrupted by a blaring searchlight. I squinted my eyes, looked up to its source, and held my hand up in front of me to block out the light. It was a police helicopter. _How the hell did they see us in this storm?!, _I thought. Of all the luck…the one time they caught up to us was in a huge blizzard, when they couldn't even detect us in fair weather!!

"Knight Sabers!!" an officer yelled over the speaker. "Give yourselves up, now!!"

"SCATTER!!" Sylia ordered quickly. All five of us quickly split up and ran in all directions, away from the helicopter. I heard Mom fire one of her needles, and a split-second later, I heard the searchlight shatter. Hopefully, that would buy us enough time for us to get away.

I ran across a nearby street and between a pair of buildings, my heart pounding so much it felt like it was going to burst out of my chest, even with my hardsuit on. I looked up, and saw the silhouettes of several more helicopters amid the blowing snow. I quickly tried to think of a plan of escape, but what could I do? There were cops probably swamping the area by now, and if I used my flight wings, the light from them would give me away. Even worse, I didn't know if the others were ok or not. I didn't think it would be safe to try to contact the others via our comms, because the police's tracking devices could possibly pick up the signals. I let out my breath – I hadn't realized I'd been holding it for a while now – and tried to think reasonably. What to do, what to do…

"Oh, screw it," I said aloud, and using my jumpjets, leaped to the top of one of the buildings I was hiding between. I looked around, and using my HUD, tried to figure out which direction was northwest; that was the direction that Sylia's building was in. The HUD pointed it out for me, and I immediately started jumping from building to building, in spite of the fact my suit was now at 65 percent power. _Please, please don't shut down before I get back to Sylia's place, _I prayed silently. Several helicopters were scanning the area with their searchlights, and I had to jump out of the way of the light as they flew overhead. A couple times, I thought they had spotted me, because my foot or something was caught in the spotlight, but the choppers just kept going. I breathed a sigh of relief and kept going.

Eventually, my legs started to get extremely sore from all the building-hopping I was doing, but I didn't dare use my jumpjets or flight wings. I felt conspicuous as it was; I didn't need my jumpjets or anything making me feel even more so. A purple hardsuit against a white blizzard of snow didn't exactly make me blend in with the scenery. At least Sylia had a good chance of getting away – her hardsuit was greyish-white, she'd blend in better.

I decided to stop and catch my breath; I felt like I'd gone on like this for an eternity, and still Sylia's Lady 633 building wasn't in sight. It could've been the snow, or the fact that time seemed like it was going in slow motion, but it felt like the closer I got, the farther away it became. After a few seconds of at least attempting to catch my breath, I decided to push on. A Knight Saber couldn't let a little snow or a few cops get in her way; she had to surpass all obstacles and keep going, no matter what.

As I was jumping onto another building, I accidentally cut it a little close; my foot landed on the edge of it instead on the roof, and because of that and the fact that there was a layer of ice and snow there, I lost my footing and fell. I managed to grab onto the edge and hang on, but then, I saw another helicopter coming. There was no way I could get out of the path of the searchlight in this situation, so I did the one thing I could do: I let go, and dropped into a dark, dingy alley. I ducked behind a dumpster, and so avoided being spotted by the cops, albeit just barely.

As I squatted there behind the dumpster, I heard police sirens and a few cars whizzing by. I sighed and stood up. How was I possibly going to last much longer like this? I was willing to bet the others were having much more luck than I was. I looked around to make sure there were no more police cars or choppers around, but then, another one drove by, and I ducked back down again.

"Having a rough day, I see," I heard a husky voice remark, and I spun around to see an old man sitting there a few feet from me, wrapped in a filthy blanket, which looked like it hadn't had a good wash in years. My heart pitter-pattered for a moment, then I sighed relief.

"Only an old geezer," I sighed.

"You're not very popular with the authorities, are you."

"You could say that," I said, starting to panic again. This little old man, with a thin, wrinkled face, white eyebrows, mustache, and beard, scrawny body, and the softest blue eyes I ever saw…he could yell for the cops if he wanted to, and then I'd be totally screwed over. And yet, I somehow felt sure that he wouldn't. I couldn't explain why I felt that way, but I did.

"Aren't you one of them Saber Knight gals that run around and kill Boomers?"

"It's Knight Sabers," I corrected. "Look, as much as I'd love to stay here and chat, I gotta get going."

"You better stay here for a couple minutes more," he warned.

"Why's th—" I started to ask, but then I heard some more helicopters passing overhead, and I ducked down once more as the glow of the searchlight passed over the dumpster and the old man, but missed me by mere inches.

"How did you hear that coming?" I inquired. "I didn't hear anything." The old man lowered the hood that covered his head, and then I saw why he had heard it coming: he had cybernetic replacements where his ears would have been. I gasped.

"When I go out asking people for some money, they ignore me when they see the implants," he said, "but if I cover my head so no one sees them, I fare better." He put his hood back on.

"I'm…sorry," I said.

He looked up at me with those soft blue eyes of his, and said, "Your voice…you sound like you're just a child still."

I fumbled for an answer. "Well…I don't think a child could handle a job like killing Boomers, do you?"

He chuckled. "I suppose you're right. I have heard 50-something ladies that still have little squeaky voices, so you have a point there." I chuckled with him, then remembered the current predicament I was in.

"I gotta get going. The cops are probably still looking for us."

"Better duck again," he warned, and I ducked just in time before another cop car whizzed by the alley.

"Maybe I should get implants in my ears too," I quipped. The old man shook his head.

"It's not a walk on easy street, having these things. I sometimes have strange visions, like I'm losing my mind, and being able to hear every little thing isn't exactly a blessing."

"Well, despite the situation I'm in, it was…nice talking to you," I said softly, and leaped up to the top of the building I'd attempted to jump onto a few minutes earlier.

"Good luck to you, and God bless," he called as I started my long journey back to Sylia's place again.

I continued leaping from building to building, wondering when the hell I would reach Sylia's place again. I hoped it wouldn't be too much longer; my suit's power was in slow decline, and with each leap I made, it was a little more difficult to move. I couldn't afford a suit shutdown now, not when I was still trying to get away from the cops. The snowfall had eased somewhat, which made things all the worse. True, I didn't stick out like a sore thumb against all that blowing snow, and my visibility was better, but now so was theirs.

And then, it happened. The lights from Sylia's penthouse came into prominent view, and the red Lady 633 sign glowed as brightly as ever. I went from near-exhausted to jumping for joy when I finally saw it. Seeing that building was like seeing an old friend again. I had made it!! Finally!!

"I did it!!" I cried out in happiness as I jumped down between the building I had just been on and the adjacent building. After making sure there were no police cars or people in sight, I ran across the street, down to the parking garage, and leaped over the automated roadblock that blocked access to the garage. I ran to the door next to a closed-off garage, practically wheezing and puffing, I was so out of breath. The screen on the voice identification device said, "VOICE VERIFICATION PLEASE."

"Just…let me in, dammit," I said, panting, and the device beeped and unlocked the door. I opened it and stepped inside, closing it behind me. I pulled off my helmet and dropped it to the floor, and wiped my half-sweaty, half-frozen bangs from my eyes.

"Took you long enough," I heard a familiar voice half-quip. I looked up and saw Mom standing there, in her regular clothes. After looking at her for a moment, I smiled weakly and hugged her. She accepted it and even hugged me back. I swayed for a moment, for I felt like I had used up all my energy just trying to get away from the police.

"You ok?" she said, stepping away and holding my chin in her thumb and index finger.

"I'm…ok," I said, and dropped to my knees, trembling from both exhaustion and cold. I hadn't noticed it while I was running from the cops, but the coolant system in the suit had shut down, so there was no temperature regulation or anything.

"You better get out of that suit," she said, kneeling and putting her hand on my armored shoulder. I nodded, slowly stood up again on wobbly legs, and disengaged the locks on my suit. Almost as soon as I stepped out of it, I dropped to the floor again. "You're freezing!" she said, and started rubbing my upper arms with her hands.

"Just…wondering," I said, my teeth chattering. "How…did you g-get a-away?"

She sighed. "I ran for a while, and then I found Mackie with the van, and hitched a ride."

"What a…about the others?"

"Same thing."

I looked up in shock. "Y-you mean I ran all…all that way for nothing?!"

She looked at me with much the same expression. "No wonder you're worn out!! You ran that whole way here!! And here I was, wondering what was taking you so long." She shook her head. "I'm surprised you weren't spotted."

"I would've scanned for…for Mackie's van, but I thought…the police would pick up the frequency."

"If they had done that, we would've been in prison long ago. Nene was jamming their radar systems."

"She was?!" I slapped myself on the forehead. Duh!! She was the computer specialist of the Knight Sabers, of COURSE she would have been jamming them the whole time!! I felt like such an ass now!!

"Lemme help you up." Mom took my hand and pulled me to my feet. I felt better now, but my legs were still extremely stiff, and my hair had little icicles in them from the water when I had dived to save Nene, but I did feel much better than I had before. As she stepped back, I barely noticed her wince.

"W…what are you looking at?" Mom asked, looking a bit confused at the way I was looking at her. I held my chin in my hand and cocked my head to the side, trying to think of what could be bothering her. In the many gymnastics competitions I'd been in, more than a few times, I had seen girls try to compete despite what injuries they might have had. The instructors eventually figured out when they were hiding something, and I eventually learned, too.

I pointed down to her foot. "Take off your boot."

She blinked. "Why?"

"This is why," I said, and bent down. With still-numb fingers, I grasped the boot on her left leg and yanked it off with one swift tug. She yelled in pain and grabbed her ankle.

"What the hell?!" she snapped. I smirked and pulled off her sock and pushed her pant leg up so I could get a clear view of her ankle. I grimaced when I saw it; it was puffy and swollen, and black and blue to boot.

"How DID you manage to even get your boot on?" I quipped.

"It's…nothing, just a sprain," she groaned, snatching the sock out of my hand and slowly easing it back onto her foot. I looked over to her hardsuit, and saw that the left ankle, where the Boomer had grabbed her, was totally crushed.

"Looks like more than a sprain to me," I observed, and pulled her sock back off. "I'll be right back." I walked over to the garage where Mackie kept the equipment van, and climbed in. I quickly found the first-aid kit, grabbed the Ace bandage and some clips out of it, and went back to Mom, who was attempting to get her boot back on. "Leave it off," I said.

"I'll be fine!!" she insisted, but yelled again when she couldn't get the boot back on. I got an ice pack, bent down, took her sore ankle in my hand, and held the ice pack to it. She jumped.

"Does that have to be so cold?" I nodded.

"Helps get the swelling down," I said.

"I've seen a few girls with injuries similar to this one before," I went on. "One of them had a dislocated ankle, and the other one had a hairline fracture. Your ankle doesn't look as bad as those ones were, so I'm guessing that Boomer cracked it. Of course, you might want to have Sylia check you out just to make sure it's nothing worse than that." I removed the ice pack and started wrapping her ankle in the bandage.

"You still cold?" she asked. "You're still shivering."

"I'm ok," I answered, and continued wrapping the ankle. "How was Nene doing on the way back here?"

She chuckled. "She was wondering if you were all right. She was also ranting and raving, saying that as soon as she got home, she was gonna take a hot shower because after that dive she took, she was freezing from head to toe."

I smirked. "That's Nene, all right." I secured the bandage with the clips. "All done. You should probably stay off the foot for a few days at least, though."

Mom pulled on her boot – albeit with a bit of difficulty – and said, "You sound like a doctor."

"I'm not planning on being one," I laughed, "but after I've been with the Knight Sabers for a while, I'll probably know about all types of injuries." I stopped talking and let out a huge yawn.

"That reminds me," she said, indicating my exhaustion, "we should get you home."

"No, I'm ok," I said, shaking my head vigorously. "I'm not tired at all…" I yawned again, and blinked a few times; my eyelids were starting to feel heavy.

She grinned. "You sure you don't want to stay the night at Sylia's place? I don't know if you'll survive the ride home. You're already starting to nod off."

"If anybody should stay the night, it should be you. I don't see how you'd be able to drive your bike home with that ankle."

"I got you here, didn't I? You'd rather walk home?" I paled. She smirked. "That's what I thought. Now let's get going."

"Damn you!" I said, and laughed as I got dressed and walked – and Mom limped – out to the parking garage and to her bike. After she started it up and let it warm up for a minute, we started the drive home, me practically falling asleep on the way. _So what if I'm a little tired, _I thought. _After all that marathon running I did tonight, wouldn't anyone else be tired too?_

After a quiet drive home – and no police cars or choppers in sight – I trudged up to our apartment and changed back into the large shirt and boxer shorts that I usually slept in, and was asleep before my head even hit the pillow.

* * *

I woke up the next day a bit later than usual; after being woken up at 11 at night to go fight Boomers, I was dead tired. Mom obviously felt the same way: she didn't get out of bed till almost noon. After I got out of bed, I printed out the newspaper and read the article about the Boomer rampage, and also looked for info about the Knight Sabers.

"_The Knight Sabers, the mysterious mercenary group that comes out of the dark of night to fight rampaging Boomers, once again fled after the Boomers were dealt with," _one paragraph read. _"Police gave chase, but the mercenaries outran them and disappeared in the storm."_ I smiled at that last sentence. The old man in the alley hadn't given me away after all. I sat there and thought for a moment, drumming my fingers on the table. How could I pay him back for helping me? He deserved something nice. Even if he didn't know who I was if I walked up to him, I was sure he would accept a gift of some sort.

"Morning," I heard Mom mumble. I looked up and saw her standing there, her hair rumpled, looking like she hadn't slept a wink. I looked down and noticed she still had the bandage on her ankle. It didn't seem to look any different from the night before, but then again, the bandage was covering it up, so I'd have to get a closer look…

"I still think you should go get your ankle checked out by Sylia, just in case," I reminded her, pouring a cup of coffee for her.

"I'll manage," she said, taking the steaming cup from me and taking a swig of the coffee.

I had an idea. "You know, I was planning on going up to Sylia's place today anyway. I could take you there while I'm at it. It's not any trouble."

She shook her head. "I just need to take it easy for a few days, and it'll be fine."

I stood up and looked her right in the face, and said, "Think of it this way: what if it's not just a sprain? What if it's cracked or dislocated or something worse? You'll want it to be properly healed so in case something happens during the Boomer summit, you'll be able to fight. Am I right?"

Mom closed her eyes, smiled, and shook her head. "All right, Yume. You win. I'll go to Sylia's place with you. But the next time you get hurt, I get to bug you about it, ok?"

I smiled. "Ok. But I get to drive this time."

* * *

Mom and I walked into the Silky Doll and looked around for Sylia. She wasn't in sight, and neither was Nene.

"Heather," I asked the cashier, using the name that was on the tag pinned to her blouse, "Do you know where Sylia and Nene are today?"

"I think they're on their lunch break," she said. "They're up in Miss Stingray's penthouse. May I ask why you're looking for them?"

"We just need to talk," Mom interrupted.

"Don't need to use that tone of voice with me," she complained.

"We're not," I said. "We just need to talk."

She raised her head, practically sticking her nose in the air, and said, "She told me that she and Miss Romanova are not to be disturbed."

"Well, we're the exception. She'll talk to us."

"Hold on a sec," Heather snapped, and picked up the phone and dialed up Sylia. "Miss Stingray? Two ladies would like to see you… Yes. Yes, they're being very persistent… Uh-huh." She turned to us. "What're your names?"

"Priss and Yumeko," Mom said, getting impatient.

"They say they're Priss and Yumeko. Yes. Oh! Yes, Miss Stingray. I apologize for disturbing you." She hung up the phone and turned to us, looking angry, and grumbled, "She said she'll see you."

Mom smirked. "Like Yume said, we're the exception." As Heather scowled at us, we walked -- Mom actually doing more limping than walking -- around behind the counter and walked up the stairs to the second-floor restaurant. There, we took the elevator to the top floor, and walked to Sylia's front door.

"Come in," we heard her say before I even had a chance to knock. I opened the door and let Mom go in first, then I followed.

"So what brings you two here?" Sylia asked, smiling.

I patted Mom on the shoulder. "Mom wants to have her ankle checked out."

"Come with me," she said, standing up and leading us to the examination room. "Priss, take off your boot and sock, and sit on the table." Mom grudgingly did so, removing the bandage while at it, revealing her ankle, which was even more swollen and bruised than the night before. "I'm guessing Yumeko persuaded you to come?" she asked.

Mom grunted.

Sylia turned to me. "Yumeko, could you wait outside for a moment? This will take a moment."

"Ok," I said, stepping out to let Sylia do whatever tests she needed to do on Mom's foot. I sat down in the living room, folded my arms behind my head, and leaned back. _I hope her ankle's ok, _I thought. _We can't afford her to be unavailable for the summit, even IF it isn't for another month._ I sighed and got up, walking out of her apartment and down the hallway. As I passed a door, I heard the humming of a computer and some frantic typing. I opened the door and saw Nene sitting there, typing away.

"Oh! Yumeko!" she exclaimed, standing up and rushing to me, throwing her arms around my neck. "I'm so glad you came back all right!!"

"I just came in here to see what you were doing," I said.

Nene sat down in front of the huge supercomputer and started typing again. "Oh, nothing much, just hacking into the police database."

I raised my eyebrows. "Why's that?"

"I need to delete any files they have on the Knight Sabers," she explained. "Gotta make sure they don't get too much info about us."

"Won't they track you?"

"Not if I do my job and log out quick. This is a tame task compared to some that I've done before." She chuckled evilly and opened up the database. "See this?" she asked, pointing to a file she was just opening. "I have to delete this. It has info about the weapons on our hardsuits, so it's gotta go." She typed a little more and then the file disappeared.

"This was easier when I was part of the AD Police, because I could delete the files from the inside; no one would have suspected one of their own was the person deleting them. But since I'm not part of the force anymore, I have to do it the hard way."

"You call this hard?" I asked sarcastically. She cackled.

"There goes a few more," she said, grinning as three more files disappeared. "I think that's about all of 'em." She logged out and leaned back in her chair, stretching her arms and legs.

"You do this after every battle?"

"Yup. It's safest to do it right afterwards, because not many people will have looked at it, and they won't be able to accumulate information about us."

"I think it's neat you know how to do that stuff, Aunt Nene. And you taught yourself, too! I couldn't do that to save my skin. I know next to nothing about computers."

"So why are you here anyway, Yumeko?" Nene asked. "Just stopping by?"

"Sorta. I need to talk to Sylia about something, and I brought Mom in to have her ankle looked at," I said.

"And Priss didn't fight you tooth and nail on the way here?" she said dryly.

"We made a deal."

"Ah." She took me by the hand and led me back to Sylia's apartment. "Let's see what they're up to now." We walked into the apartment and walked back to the examining room. Mom was sitting there on the table, her left leg stretched out. Sylia was bent over her ankle, fitting it with a walking cast.

"Done that quick?" I asked.

Sylia turned to me. "Yes. I did an x-ray on Priss' ankle and it's cracked in three places."

Mom looked away. "Hmph. I woulda been fine without this damn cast."

"I told you, Mom," I reminded her. "Good thing I brought you in here, or you would've done some serious damage to that ankle with all that running around you do."

"I can't believe I'm saying this," Nene piped up, "but little Yumeko here actually has some good advice you should follow, Priss."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I inquired suspiciously.

"It means," Nene said, looking at me and grinning, "that you must've gotten your common sense from somewhere other than from your mom."

Mom jumped off the table, wincing at the pain that caused her ankle, and strided towards Nene, glaring daggers at her. "What kinda sick joke are you trying to pull?!"

The freaked-out redhead raised her hands in front of her, as if in surrender. "It…it…it was just a saying, Priss!!"

"I don't care!! Yume didn't get her common sense from her bastard of a father, that's for sure!!"

"The way you act, it doesn't seem like she coulda gotten it from you!!"

I looked over at Sylia to see if she was going to step in, but she just stood there with her arms crossed. She looked over at me, as if she knew what I was thinking, and had that look in her eyes that said '_don't step in to defend her.'_ I slowly nodded and looked back over to Mom and Nene.

"Priss, you need to open up about this!!" Nene yelled. "You can't keep it bottled up forever! You know it's just gonna eat away at you!!"

"It's none of your business whether I talk about it or not!!" Mom shot back, her voice starting to waver a bit. "You don't have a damn clue what I went through!!"

Nene sighed. "I know that, and I'm sorry you had to go through something like that, but you gotta open up eventually. I'm sure Yumeko's wondering what exactly went on. She's your daughter, Priss. She has more of a right to know than any of us."

Mom fumbled for something to say, but the words got tangled up on her tongue. Finally, she just stormed/limped past Nene and me, and out the door.

"M-Mom?!" I called to her.

"She'll be fine," Sylia said, walking over to me and putting her hand gently on my shoulder. "She's just overwhelmed."

"I don't understand," I moaned. "Why doesn't she ever talk about it? Linna told me yesterday that she's probably just trying to protect me, but…"

"So, you came to talk to me about something?" she asked, abruptly changing the subject.

"Yeah." I walked out to Sylia's living room and flopped down on the couch.

"What did you want to ask me about?" she asked, sitting down next to me.

I fidgeted. "Well, you know how I dived in to save Nene from that Boomer last night, right?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"I was wondering if you could upgrade the flight system on my hardsuit."

"Why?" she inquired. "Your flight wings are just as powerful as mine."

"It barely managed to get me to Nene in time. If the wings had shut down on me, Nene and I would've been goners. Maybe with a power boost, I could get there faster next time, if there is a next time, anyway."

Sylia lowered her eyes and nodded slowly. "I see. You do seem to have a good reason for wanting an upgrade, but if I do upgrade your wings, it won't be for a while. Mackie is still working on repairing the water damage done to your and Nene's hardsuits, not to mention the fair-sized crack on your helmet."

I flushed. "Well, I didn't mean for THAT to happen." She smiled and stood up.

"You and Priss should get going," she said. "Nene and I have to get back to work."

"With Heather down there, I'd think you'd never want to leave your apartment," I quipped. She chuckled.

"She's a handful at times, but she's trustworthy when it comes to watching the Silky Doll."

"No kidding. When we first got here, she looked at us like we were gonna rob the place or something."

I walked outside to the patio to get some air before Mom and I had to leave. Leaning on the rail was Mom, looking at the buildings surrounding the Lady 633 building. She was trembling slightly, almost as if she was…crying?

"That…damn…Nene," I heard her mutter. "She hasn't a clue. Can't get anything through that mop of pink hair…"

"Mom?" I said. She jumped slightly and turned to me.

"Hey, Yume," she said with a sad tone in her voice. I walked over to her.

"I don't think that Nene meant to hurt you," I said, shaking my head. "She just said the wrong thing at the wrong time. I'm not surprised you blew up at her, but you can't really hold it against her. She's just naïve in that sort of way, I guess."

She sighed and looked out at the horizon. "Naïve… You're naïve in your own way, you know, Yume."

I frowned at her comment. "How am I naïve?!"

"I mean it in a good way. You've had a pretty easy life compared to the one I've led so far. You've never had to watch your back wherever you go, or fight to survive on the streets. You never…had to watch your parents get crushed underneath the rubble that used to be the place where you lived… You didn't have to run with a biker gang in order to survive…" Her voice started cracking. "And…you've never had to have almost every person you've gotten close to end up dead before your eyes."

I let out a sigh and just stood there, looking at her. Maybe she was right. I HAVE had it pretty easy compared to her. I'd always thought Nene was the perfect definition of a naïve, airheaded girl, but…then again, maybe I WAS naïve, after all. A lot of people had come up to us over the years, and said that Mom and I could be sisters, we were so much alike, in personality as well as some physical characteristics. But the truth is…Mom and I were two completely different people underneath the surface. She was a woman hardened from her life experiences; she knew if something was going to happen even before it took place. And me, I was the wide-eyed optimist, trying to see the bright side of everything, even if it seemed like there wasn't one. But then again, if there is a shadow somewhere, then a light mustn't be too far away…


	4. Birthdays and Bodyguarding

A knock at the door woke me up from my deep slumber. I groaned, sat up in bed, and ran my hand through my tangled hair. I looked at the clock on my desk; it read 10:42 A.M. Who would wake me up this 'early' in the morning?

"Yumekoooo!!" I heard a cheery voice call out from the other side of the door.

"Michiko?!" I gasped aloud, and ran to the door, still in my nightshirt and boxer shorts. I threw open the door and there she stood, her hair tied back in a looped ponytail, wearing a T-shirt with a jacket over it, blue shorts, and what looked like brand-new shoes.

"You look nice today," she laughed.

"You just woke me up, how else would I be dressed?" I asked, laughing.

"Do you want to go out shopping with me today?"

"Why do you ask?"

She cocked her head and looked at me with that playful look in her eyes. "Did you honestly forget what today is?"

I gasped and slapped myself on the forehead. "Crap!! It's your birthday today!!"

She smiled. "Yup!! My mom and dad gave me 70,000 yen to go shopping with, and I was wondering if you wanted to go with me to Ginza district."

"And that money's in addition to your birthday present?"

"Uh-huh!! Please come with me, Yumeko!! It's no fun going shopping by yourself!!"

I smiled. "Well, I have to get dressed first."

"So go get dressed!!" she said, practically jumping up and down with excitement. "The sooner we get there, the better!! Best to avoid the early afternoon crowds, y'know!!"

After I got some clothes on, Michiko and I rode to Ginza district. It wasn't even noon yet, but this part of Tokyo knew no night or day; it was positively packed no matter when people decided to come here.

We decided to go into the music store first. There was the usual crowd swarming everywhere, looking at rap CDs, rock, J-pop, and CDs by American singers. Michiko dragged me over to the rock section and looked through the CDs there.

"Looking for any one in particular?" I asked.

Michiko grinned. "Priss' new CD, of course."

"It came out a couple months ago. I thought you would've had a copy of it by now. You're one of Mom's biggest fans," I pointed out, smiling.

"I didn't have the money," she said. "But I do now! Here it is!!" She found the CD and held it up in her hand. It was entitled _Priss and the Replicants: Everything's a Sweet Fantasy._ On the cover was a smiling Mom, wearing a red-sequined stretch top and blue jeans, both her hands in her hair, her head and upper body cocked to the side slightly. Also on the cover was a sticker saying that this was a multi-platinum album and that it featured the hit songs _Everything's a Sweet Fantasy _and _Anata wa Only Mine._

"I've heard these songs all the time on the radio," Michiko exclaimed. "It was torture waiting to get some money to buy this CD, and now I can listen to all her songs at home and not have to wait for them to come on the radio!!"

"So buy it!!" I encouraged. She laughed and said that of course she would.

After we left the music store, Michiko starting singing some of the lyrics to the _Sweet Fantasy _song. "_Jinko-soo ja nai, demo watashi wa Sweet Fantasy o shinjiru._"

I chimed in, "_Anata to kono Sweet Fantasy no kyokubu ni naritai no._"

We both looked at each other and laughed.

Michiko wanted to go to the clothing store next, so she and I shoved our way through the mosh pit of a crowd, made our way into the even worse-crowded elevator, and went up to the third floor, where the clothing store was. She immediately ran in and went to the jeans section.

After picking out a few pairs, she turned to me and said, "I'm going to go try these on, ok? You can tell me whether they look good or not, because sometimes I have really bad taste in clothes."

"You don't have bad taste. Who says you have to wear what everybody else is wearing, anyway?" I said.

"True. Well, I'm gonna go try some of these on now." She went into the nearby dressing room. While I waited, I looked at some of the shirts on the racks, and ended up shaking my head. Some of the shirts in this store were 4,000 yen a piece. I couldn't understand why people would waste that much money on one lousy shirt when they could buy a decent pair of boots for that much.

"Yumeko!" Michiko called to me. "How do these look?" I looked into the dressing room, and saw she had tried on the black pair that she'd chosen out. They were like bell-bottoms, flaring out at the ankle. I motioned for her to turn around, and looked at the backside as well.

"Does your butt hurt? The jeans look way too tight there," I pointed out, blushing.

Her face fell. "It shows that much?"

I nodded.

She sighed. "Well, I still have three other pairs I'd like to try on. Maybe they won't make my butt seem like it's sticking out a mile." She closed the door and a minute later, called me in to critique the next pair. This pair was blue, and didn't flare out at the ankles like the first pair did. Michiko turned around, and they didn't cling to her butt, either.

"Those ones look great on you!"

"Really?" she exclaimed. "The other two pairs are just like this, except they're different colors. Do you think I should get those, too?"

"You should try them on first, just to make sure they fit."

After trying on the last two pairs to see that they fit all right, she bought them and a pair of sunglasses. After leaving the store, we were left to debate where to go next.

"I know!" I said. "How about we go to the jewelry store?"

"The jewelry store? Yeah!! There was something there that I wanted to look at!!" Michiko exclaimed, and we walked the two blocks down to the local jeweler's store. When we walked in, the store manager greeted us with a bow.

"How are you ladies doing today?"

"We're doing fine," I said, returning the bow. Michiko bowed as well.

"Where's your ring section?" she asked.

"Over in the far right corner, miss," the manager said, pointing.

"Thank you," she said in a singsong voice, practically skipping over to the case.

"Do you have any necklaces here?" I asked in a low voice.

"Yes, miss, we do. Right in the center section."

I walked over to the center of the small store and looked in the case. There were necklaces of gold, silver, gold with gold hearts, gold entwined in pearls…so many choices! _Now what would Michiko just love?,_ I asked myself, biting my lip as I thought, my hands pressed against the glass. She didn't care for rubies…she was allergic to nickel…and she didn't think silver looked very good on her. That limited my options JUST a little bit. But then, I saw something I knew she was just love.

"Can I see that?" I asked, pointing to the thin gold necklace with an amber heart attached.

"You certainly may, miss," he replied, unlocking the case and removing the necklace. He set it in my hands, and I held it up to see. The heart was an orange-gold color, and seemed to glow underneath the light. Michiko would love this.

"Michiko, come over here," I called to her. She turned and looked at me curiously.

"Did you find something you like, Yumeko?" she asked.

"You'll see. Now just come over here and close your eyes," I said, hiding the necklace behind my back. She walked over to me, and I told her to stand up straight and close her eyes. I took the necklace, and wrapped it around her neck, attaching it in the back.

"Now open your eyes," I said, standing behind her. She opened them and looked into the mirror on the case. She gasped.

"Yumeko, it's beautiful!!" she breathed, her jaw dropping. "Is this for me?"

"Mm-hmm," I said. "It's my present to you."

Her eyes started to well up with tears. "You didn't have to buy anything for me…just your company is all I ever need…"

I shook my head and threw my arms around her neck. "I had to get you something for your seventeenth birthday. Besides, you've done a lot for me, and I had to pay it back somehow. Plus, I had to make up for all the times I forgot your birthday," I laughed.

"It's March 5th, and don't you forget it," she said, laughing through her tears as she hugged me back.

* * *

"What would you girls like for birthday dinner?" Michiko's mom asked us.

"Is there any chicken in the fridge?" Michiko asked.

"Yes, dear."

"Could we have some grilled chicken, then?"

"Of course!!"

"Your mom's great," I said, leaning back on the couch in her apartment. I had called Mom and asked her if I could stay the night at Michiko's house, and she said yes, so here I was.

"Isn't she though?" Michiko agreed. "She and Priss must be the greatest moms alive. They work so hard to keep us fed and have a roof over our heads, and we…just seem to take advantage of it, not even giving our thanks."

"They know we're grateful," I assured her. "Mom told me a long time ago that just seeing my bright face first thing in the morning is thanks enough for her."

"Mom told me something similar to that, too," she said, a soft smile forming on her lips. "Do you know anything about your dad?"

I shook my head. "She'd rather not discuss my dad. I don't know who he is or what he looks like, but I'm sure he's out there somewhere."

"Do you think he knows that you even exist?"

"I'm sure he does, whether he actually acknowledges it or not. If he doesn't care about me, fine. I don't care if I ever know who he is."

"That's a pity. Everyone needs two parents in their lives."

"Me and Mom are doing fine on our own."

She shook her head. "Still…you should at least know who he is…"

After Michiko's mom finished cooking the chicken for us, we all sat down in front of the TV and ate. As we were watching the news, the subject of the Boomer summit came up.

"With the summit about the Boomer problems just five days away, the police are already preparing to deal with protests and possible riots," the newscaster said.

Michiko turned to me. "What do you think about the summit?" she asked with a mouthful of chicken.

I sighed and set down my plate. "I think they should destroy all the Boomers and use the parts for something useful. We're all so used to having stuff done for us by the Boomers that when people go to work, it's not even really work anymore. We're getting lazy. And besides, it's not only Combat Boomers that go insane in the streets; waitress Boomers could go haywire at any time, too."

"You know what I think would be really ironic? If Boomers went nuts during the summit. Wouldn't that just figure?"

"Well, the Knight Sabers have always been there to destroy any rampaging Boomers, right? As long as they're around, we'll have almost nothing to worry about."

"Knight Sabers…hmph!" I heard Michiko's mom say behind me. "They're just a band of mercenaries that do more damage than even the Boomers do." I swallowed my food hard. What a filthy lie!! "I think they should let the police do their jobs and stay out of it. And while the police are at it, they should be arresting the Knight Sabers, too! Let them rot in prison for what they've done! They stormed Genom Tower years ago and killed Mr. Mason!! You can't let them get away with something like that, can you?!"

I spit my food back onto my plate; suddenly, it wasn't tasting so good anymore…

"You ok, Yumeko?" Michiko asked, looking concerned.

"Considering what Genom has done to this city over the years," I said, "maybe it's a good thing they killed Mason."

"A GOOD thing?!" Michiko's mom fired. "How can killing one of the top men of Genom be a good thing?!"

"Do I really need to explain?" I mumbled, and stood up, walking to Michiko's bedroom. Michiko followed.

"I thought you knew my mom hated the Knight Sabers," she sighed.

"They put their lives on the line to save us!!" I yelled. "What is there to hate?!"

"She's a very law-abiding person, you could say. Anybody that breaks the law, she thinks should spend the rest of their days in prison. It's the way she is. I can't even say anything about the Knight Sabers because she'll question my opinion about them, and ask if I love criminals so much."

"They're not criminals…" I grumbled, flopping down on the bed.

"Come sit down on the floor," she suddenly said.

"Why?" I asked, raising my head.

"You need to relax," she said, "and I know what to do to get you to do so." She took out a caboodle full of nail polish bottles, and looked through them.

"What, by getting my nails painted?"

"Well, it helps me relax, so it might help you, too."

I decided to let her paint my nails, so I sat down on the floor next to Michiko. She picked out a bottle of forest-green polish and started painting my nails in that color. I was still a bit tense at first, but after she had done a few nails, I started to relax. Maybe she was right, after all. This was kind of relaxing, even if it wasn't my most favorite thing to do in my spare time. After she was done with my right hand and moved on to my left, she started asking me some questions.

"Are you going to try out for the gymnastics team next year, Yumeko?" she asked.

"Maybe. But the tryouts aren't till late April, and—"

"That's right!! Your mom's tour starts next month, doesn't it!!"

"Yeah…" I said glumly.

"Oh, yeah," she said, sighing. "You're planning on staying here. You're going to be missing her a lot, I'm sure." Michiko obviously didn't know the real reason I was depressed. She couldn't know even if I wanted to tell her. Would Mom go on the tour, just so nobody got suspicious of anything, or would she stay here, and risk not only making millions of fans upset, but get people suspicious of the real reasons she was canceling?

"Yeah, I'll be missing her," I said, going along with it.

"And remember," Michiko reminded me, looking up at me, "I'll still be here if you need to talk about anything, ok? Don't forget."

I smiled. "Of course I won't forget that, Michiko. You're my best friend, why would I talk to somebody else when you're here?"

Suddenly, we heard a loud booming noise from outside of the apartment. Michiko and I jumped at the sudden sound.

"What was that?!" she asked, alarmed.

"I don't know," I said, racing out of her room and out the front door. Looking down the corridor, I saw a few policemen trying to restrain a much bigger man. I recognized him as Tsubasa. _Wonder what they're arresting him for,_ I wondered.

"Come along, mister," one policeman said, holding Tsubasa's arms behind his body and attempting to handcuff him. Tsubasa tried to wiggle free, and even kicked some of the other officers away. Eventually, he got his hands free, turned around, and punched the officer holding him.

"What the hell…?" I asked to no one in particular.

"Get off me, you sons of bitches!!" Tsubasa yelled, punching a few more of them as they tried to restrain him. He suddenly then pulled out a gun and shot in our direction. I gasped and put my arms in front of my face, half-expecting to be hit. Michiko screamed and ducked.

"Michiko, you ok?" I asked immediately after I heard her scream. She slowly looked up at me, her eyes wide with fear.

"I'm…ok…" she said, voice shaking. We both turned around and saw the bullet hole in the wall, just inches from where we were. Talk about close calls.

"What are you doing here?!" Tsubasa suddenly asked me. That split-second gave the police enough time to spray him in the eyes with pepper spray and subdue him.

"I was just gonna ask you the same thing," I mumbled, folding my arms over my bosom.

"C'mon, you're coming with us," an officer said as the others dragged him away. Tsubasa kicked and yelled curse words, trying to get away, but he couldn't see worth crap thanks to the pepper spray, so even if he did get away, he wouldn't exactly be able to see where he was going.

"About why he's here," Michiko suddenly said, "he and Masahiro live in this building, too."

"I didn't think they'd be able to afford living here."

"The police come here every so often because of Tsubasa. Most of the time, they arrest him for assault, battery, disturbing the peace, and God knows what else. That was a typical scene we just saw, though I've never almost been shot before," she said, just now getting the color back into her face.

"I wish I could agree with that last comment," I remarked, shuddering at the memory.

"Tsubasa'll probably be back in a week," Michiko groaned. "We should get inside before anything else happens." She looked down the corridor to make sure nobody else was acting strangely, then led me back into her apartment.

My last thoughts as I drifted off to sleep were not of our close encounter with Tsubasa, but of the upcoming Boomer summit. Would anything happen? Were the Knight Sabers just wasting their time taking this job in the first place? And if anything did happen, would we come out of it ok?

* * *

Tomorrow would be March tenth, the first day of the dreaded Boomer summit. I trudged through school that day, having to listen to everyone else talk about that damned gathering. The way teenagers usually act, I'd think they wouldn't pay it much attention, but geez, that's all the kids at school talked about all day!! Would Boomers still legally be allowed to exist after the summit? Would they disappear off the face of the planet, or would they still be on the streets, still doing our dirty work for us? I tried to shut it out whenever the topic came up, but I just couldn't, especially when the topic of the Knight Sabers came up.

"Hey, you think the Knight Sabers will still be around after the summit?" I heard one boy ask another. "If the Boomers aren't around anymore, they won't be around anymore, either."

"They'll be around," another kid assured him, sounding very sure of himself. "They popped up again when the Boomers started going nutso again, right? So they'll be here."

"Hey Yumeko," the first one suddenly said, throwing a wad of paper at the back of my head to get my attention. I ducked it and spun around.

"What do you want?" I asked, thoroughly annoyed by all the talk about the summit.

"Geez, don't need to be a grumpy gal. You look like somebody died or something." _Yeah, and it ain't gonna be me if this talk keeps up,_ I thought.

"So what do you want?" I grumbled.

"Just wondering what you think about the Knight Sabers and whether they'll be around after the Boomer summit."

"I'm positive they'll still be around," I said, getting to the point.

"Think they're humans like us or just someone's really advanced Boomers, sent out to fight other Boomers?"

"The Knight Sabers, Boomers?!" I laughed out loud. "Only humans would be crazy enough to fight Boomers!!"

"Well, I know YOU'D be crazy enough to fight them, but not anybody else. I don't think even Masahiro would take one on."

"Masahiro can't even take ME on, what are you talking about?"

He laughed. "Seriously now. Are you a Knight Saber in disguise, Yumeko?"

I smiled smugly. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. If the Knight Sabers are humans – which I'm sure they are – why would they want a kid on their team?"

"Well, your athletic ability, for one. You were at the World Championships back in July, right? The Sabers would certainly want somebody with that kind of ability."

I folded my arms behind my head and leaned back in my chair. "Yes, I was there, but I didn't win. They'd probably want somebody who's the best at what they do."

"But you were in the finals there," he persisted.

"Look, it's ridiculous to think that I'm a Knight Saber," I said, getting very impatient. "It's most likely a very dangerous job, and not to mention it doesn't pay much, and the cops are on their asses twenty-four hours a day!! Why would anyone want a job like that?!"

I stood up, grabbed my backpack, and left the room, leaving the boy sitting there, wondering what to say next.

* * *

"Rough day?" Mom asked when I walked in the door.

"You could say that," I groaned, sitting down on the couch. "Kids were talking about the summit all day."

She sighed. "Not looking forward to it, are you."

"Hell no. We're risking our butts to bodyguard some lousy politicians, and for what? They probably won't know what to do about the Boomers, anyway. It's a waste of our time!!"

"Come up to the roof," she said, taking my hand and dragging me out the door. "We need to talk."

We walked up the stairs to the top of our apartment building, and opened the door to the roof. The wind immediately greeted us, blowing our hair back and playing across our faces. I sat down right then and there, and Mom stood nearby, leaning with her back to the guard rail.

"So why did you bring me up here, Mom?" I asked, cupping my chin in my hand.

"Nobody'll hear us if we're up here," she said. "Anyway, you know that the Boomer summit is tomorrow, and chances are that we're going to be getting into some fights. People, or Boomers for that matter, would just love to break up the meeting."

"So what are you saying?"

"If…if something does happen, and the Knight Sabers have to get involved…I want you to stay out of it."

"W…why?!" I inquired. Just what was Mom pulling?! I was a Knight Saber too!! I had just as much duty to protect people as the others did; why should I sit out?!

She bent down and cupped my face in her hands, looking at me with those bright red eyes that I had gotten from her, and said gently, "Because, Yume…you're my girl. If I can avoid letting you get seriously hurt or killed, then that's what I'm going to do. You don't know what a major fight is like. I do though, and believe me, it's not something you want to be in. I'll fight for the both of us. You don't need to worry."

I gently shook my head. "I have to be in the fight, if it ever occurs. I'm just as much a Knight Saber as you, Aunt Linna, Aunt Nene, and Sylia. I have a duty to protect those politicians, even if I don't want to protect them in the first place. You can't stop me from jumping into the fight."

"Look, Yume! I'm not asking you to stay out of the fight, I'm telling you! I'm not going to let you get yourself killed. You still have your whole life ahead of you. You're only sixteen, Yume. I barely made it through my teenage years, and damn it, I'm going to make sure you do, too!" She started to get tears in her eyes. "You don't understand what you'll be getting yourself into if you jump in…"

"Mom…" I sighed. What could I do? Mom did have a bit more fighting experience than I did, and she'd been at the heart of a major battle more than once. She was more than willing to throw her life away if it meant that I would live on.

"Promise me that if something does happen, Yume, that you'll stay out of it," she said, almost pleading with me.

"All right. I promise," I said, giving in. "I won't jump in on anything."

I'd promised Mom that I wouldn't jump into the battle – if there would be a battle – but a few concerns continued to nag me. What if there was a battle, and the only way the KS would win was if I jumped in? What if one of them got killed because I wasn't in the battle to help? I knew I had to stop assuming that anything was going to happen, but this was a Boomer summit; just about anything and everything was guaranteed to happen, and I wanted to be there to put a stop to whatever would go on. That night, I tried to put the summit out of my mind, but it was futile. The last night before the summit was a restless sleep, one filled with nightmares of being ambushed by Boomers so strong, we didn't last a minute against them. And Michiko's words from a couple days ago continued to echo in my mind: "_You know what I think would be really ironic? If Boomers went nuts during the summit. Wouldn't that just figure?_"

I couldn't agree more.

* * *

I woke up the next day with a cloud of gloom hanging over my head. Why in the world had Sylia accepted this job in the first place? My gut feeling said that if it weren't for the eighty million yen that she'd been offered, she wouldn't have taken it. I swore that if I were ever in Sylia's place, I would completely ignore the fee and just take a look at what the job itself had to offer. Nobody could bribe me to save their lives; I was too smart for that, and I'd been hoping Sylia was, too, but then again, the Knight Sabers' bank account wasn't exactly bottomless.

I walked into the bathroom, stripped off my pajamas, and walked into the shower, turning on the water as hot as I could stand without burning myself. I turned on the waterproof shower radio and turned it to the news.

"The summit is an hour away from officially starting," the newscaster said as I scrubbed shampoo into my hair, "and already the protesters are gathering to show their support, or opposition, to Boomers. Some have been gathered in front of the convention center since before dawn, and the police have been stationed in front of the center since last night to prepare for the protests and any possible riots. Traffic has been rerouted around the area, and it's highly recommended that anyone going downtown should be wary of the situation here."

I washed the shampoo out of my hair and started scrubbing myself off with a loofah and some exfoliating cream. As I was scrubbing my shoulder, my finger ran across a rough patch of skin, and I stopped to look at what it had hit. It was the scar from when that Combat Boomer had shot me a couple months ago. About the size of my fingernail, and pinkish-red in hue, it stood out against my tan skin. I smiled gently upon the sight of it. Strange as it sounds, I almost had an emotional attachment to that little scar. Not only was it my first battle scar, but it was also a sign of what I had survived. I could have had it removed easily, but I wanted it to remain, to remind me that I was a survivor of a Boomer assault, that I had escaped death.

As I finished scrubbing myself off and put some conditioner in my hair, the newscaster on the radio suddenly seemed to get excited over something.

"The protesters are gathering in large numbers here, and they seem to be getting quite rowdy! Oh, the police are getting ready to intervene…" I stopped and looked at the radio, wide-eyed. _Cool, they're rioting!!,_ I thought gleefully. _Maybe that way, they can put off the start of the summit a bit._

I rinsed the conditioner out of my hair and turned off the water. Stepping out of the shower, I dried myself off and wrapped my hair in the towel, and got dressed. I took off the towel and combed out my hair, blow-drying it at the same time. After I washed my face, I went to put on my shoes when my pager went off.

"Yumeko here," I spoke into it – the pager doubled as a communicator.

"Yumeko," I heard Sylia say, "it's time you got down to the convention center. We need to be in position before the world leaders arrive."

"Where should I meet you at? I heard on the radio that traffic would be blocked."

"Park in the open lot southeast of the center. I'll have Linna meet you there."

"Ok."

* * *

The news guy on the radio had said that it would be pretty crowded around the convention center, but when he said crowded, he meant it!! On my way there, traffic hadn't been too bad, but all of a sudden, out of nowhere, it slowed down to a complete stop. I peered past the cars in front of me, and saw a huge crowd jamming the street, yelling and holding of signs of protest. _I guess I'm close, then, _I thought sarcastically. I started up my motorcycle again and starting driving between the two lanes; I had to get out of this street if I didn't want to be late to start watching over the summit. The other drivers honked at me and yelled profanities, but I ignored them and drove on. When I reached the crowd, I slowed down, then backed up and veered my bike between two other cars and entered the open lot where Sylia told me to park.

"Let's see, she said Linna would be here waiting…" I said to myself, looking around for her. Couldn't see her anywhere in this crowd. After waiting a few minutes, I decided to head towards the convention center; maybe she'd just been caught in the huge crowd.

"Linna!!" I called out. "Where are you?!" My voice, however, was drowned out by the protesting of the people in the streets. "RID US OF THIS MENACE TO SOCIETY!!", one sign read. "NO MORE BOOMERS!!", another read.

"We hope that the world leaders will rid us of these pests!!" one person preached to the others, standing on top of a car. "How many people must die before they understand?! Boomers must go down!!" The crowd roared. I covered my ears to drown out the noise, and kept looking for Linna.

"Attention!!" I heard a policeman in riot gear yell into his megaphone. "You must disperse now!!" The crowd only yelled more, and they started to throw trash at the officer. One guy nailed him in the eye with a beer bottle. The officer made a hand gesture at some other officers standing by, and they came forward with something in their hands. I recognized the objects as tear gas canisters, and realizing that there'd probably be a stampede in a couple of seconds, I quickly grabbed onto a lamppost. The officers pulled out the pins with their mouths and quickly threw them into the crowd, immediately putting on their gas masks.

In a matter of seconds, a white cloud of gas filled the air and started spreading out through the streets. People instantly started coughing and hacking and rubbing their eyes from the burning pain, and like I expected, everybody then quickly scattered. They dropped their signs and started running from the pursuing officers. As the wave of people pushed past me, I struggled to hold on to the lamppost, squeezing my eyes shut to keep out the tear gas, but in vain. They quickly started to burn and water, and as one of my hands reached to rub them, I lost my grip on the lamppost and was swept away in the crowd. I fell to the ground, but before I could get crushed underneath the stampede, I felt someone grab me by the arm and pull me between a couple of buildings.

"Are you ok?" I heard Linna say. I rubbed my eyes and when I opened them, saw her standing there, her eyes looking red from rubbing the tear gas out of them.

"I'm fine," I said, still rubbing.

"Why didn't you stay where you were supposed to be?" she asked, starting to rub her burning eyes as well.

"Because Sylia told me you'd be there when I got there, and when you weren't there, I went to look for you."

"Just come on," she said, taking me by the hand and leading me further into the alley. We weaved our way between the numerous buildings, and after a few minutes of walking around, we came to one of the equipment vans, sitting there behind a condemned building.

"Isn't this a bit conspicuous?" I asked.

"It's better than having it sit out in the middle of a crowded parking lot, right?" Linna said, beckoning me to get in the van. I climbed in, and saw Nene sitting there at the computer terminal in her innerwear.

"You're finally here!" Nene exclaimed. "What kept you?"

"Stampede," I said, still rubbing my eyes, then looked around. "Where's Sylia and Mom?"

"They're in another van, on the other side of the convention center," Nene said. "Having hardsuited people fly over the center to keep watch on the other side as well…we'd be standing out too much, so we have two separate 'bases'."

"Oh."

"We should get changed into our innerwear, Yumeko," Linna said, pulling off her sweater. I nodded and got changed. After we were changed, Linna got into her hardsuit and suited up.

"Going on watch?"

"Yep. At noon, Priss and I have to go on watch. At one, you and Sylia go. We'll be alternating like that until eight."

"And what about tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow, we'll be alternating between me and Sylia, and you and Priss."

"When did you guys come up with the schedule for this, anyway?" I inquired, folding my arms over my chest.

"This morning," Nene said. "Priss decided to leave you out of the scheduling part so we wouldn't have to hear you complain about the way it'd be worked out."

"Complain?!" I grumbled.

"Oh, and we also all agreed that in the event of a terrorist or Boomer attack, you'd keep out of it unless it was a dire emergency."

My jaw dropped. "THAT'S probably why she decided to leave me out of this morning's meeting!!" I yelled. "I'm a Knight Saber too, dammit!!"

Linna nodded. "Yes, that's true, Yumeko, but Priss and the rest of us have a responsibility to protect you."

"I can protect myself…"

Linna shook her head in disbelief and put on her helmet and left, leaving Nene and me by ourselves in the van. I sighed and sat down on the floor next to my hardsuit. I had the feeling that this was going to be a looooong summit…

* * *

Day Two of the Boomer summit…

"Ok, listen up," Sylia announced. "Today, Yumeko, Mackie, and myself will be in the van on the west side of the convention center. Linna, Priss, Nene, you three will be on the east side. We will rotate between Yumeko and Priss, and Linna and myself. Everyone understand?"

We all nodded and headed out to the convention center, Mom and Linna getting into one van with Nene at the wheel, me and Sylia getting into the other with Mackie driving.

"How in the world did Mom talk you into keeping me out of any potential fights?!" I grumbled, leaning against the wall as we drove down the street.

"Actually, we both agreed on keeping you out," Sylia said coolly. "You're younger and less experienced than the rest of us, and if things do get a bit rough, at least we know how to keep a clear head."

"I can keep a clear head!" I protested.

She shook her head. "I disagree. Whenever you've been in trouble during a battle, you actually seem to lose your mind instead of keeping a clear one. What I mean by keeping a clear head is that in a crisis, you stay calm, think rationally, and don't panic."

"And you're saying Nene can keep a clear head?" I asked dryly.

"Just do as you're told and the summit will go by much faster for you than if you complain the whole time," she snapped, ending the conversation. I sighed and put my hand up against my hardsuit, gazing at it longingly. At this rate, I was practically hoping something would happen during the summit. Then I'd show her. I'd show her that I could stay calm in a crisis. I was willing to bet that if any Boomers dared interfered with the summit, I could take them all out myself…

* * *

Day Three…

"How is everything up there, Yumeko?" Nene asked over the comm. I'd been on watch for the past half-hour, watching over the building to make sure nobody suspicious was hanging around or anything.

"Boring," I said. "The only interesting thing to see up here is the thunderstorm over in Tokyo Bay."

"Well, that's good. Just contact me if there's anything suspicious. Nene over and out."

"Ok," I sighed as she disconnected. Yes, we were getting paid eighty million yen to watch over the summit, but damn, I hadn't thought it would be this boring!! There was absolutely nada to do but stare at a drab, grey building that was starting to get stained yellow from the air pollution, not to mention the group of protesters that continually stood there outside the building, chanting about the good or evil that Boomers do to society. At this rate, my hardsuit would probably rust from all the sitting around we were doing. I stood up and stretched my legs; they were starting to get cramped.

"Get down," I heard Mom order over the comm. "I can see you from clear over here."

"Well, my legs are getting cramped."

"So don't squat. Just sit down or something, but don't stand up!"

"Fine, fine," I said, sitting down and stretching out my legs on the roof. If I'd known how dull this was, just sitting around on a rooftop doing next to nothing, I would've at least brought my old jacks along.

After a little while longer of sitting there, I started to feel so positively bored out of my skull that I was considering making drawings in the ground with my laser gun, but nixed that idea, for Nene contacted me again.

"Your shift's over. Sylia should be up in a minute," she said.

"Ok," I said. After Sylia came up to where I was and said I could go, I left, ducking and running so no one down on the street could see me, then leaped down to the equipment van. Opening the roof hatch, I climbed down into the van, closed the hatch, and pulled off my helmet.

"Another day, another boring shift," I sighed.

"Well, think of it this way: at least nothing's happened so far," Nene said, trying to cheer me up. It didn't help.

"Talk about a double-edged sword, nothing happening, I mean."

She nodded in understanding. "There's only a week left of the summit. It'll go by faster than it seems it will. And besides, if anyone wanted to really interrupt the summit, I think they would have made their move by now."

"Somehow, I doubt that…"

* * *

Days Four and Five of the summit were much the same way. By Day Six, I thought I was going to lose my mind. As if school lectures weren't boring enough, I had to come downtown to watch over this summit that probably wasn't going to go anywhere.

"Yumeko, doing her homework?" Mackie wisecracked as I sat there on the floor, working on a few calculus problems. "What has the world come to?"

"Not like I have much else to do…" I mumbled, finishing up a problem.

"Need help?"

"No. I just have a few more to do, then I have to do my English homework."

"Well, that shouldn't be a problem for you, Miss English Whiz."

"The only reason I'm even in that class is because it's required. They don't care if I'm already proficient in it or not." I finished up the calculus paper and started on the English worksheet.

"It's nice that you're actually doing your homework for once, but you need to stay alert in case something happens."

"Doesn't matter," I said, not looking up from my homework. "The others said they weren't gonna let me fight unless it was absolutely necessary, anyway." I frowned as I recalled the conversation that Sylia and I had had a couple days ago. Who was to say that I couldn't keep a cool temperament in a catastrophe, especially Sylia? She hadn't even been a personal witness to most of the stuff I'd been through the past couple months; what evidence could she possibly have to back up her words?

"Hello?" I heard Mackie say. I snapped out of my own world to see him waving his hand in front of my face. "You're just staring into space."

I looked up at him and said, "I'm fine. Nothing's wrong."

"You just look preoccupied, that's all. Something on your mind?"

"I wish they'd let me fight with them, that's all." I nibbled on the end of my pencil as I looked over the paper I was working on.

"Don't let it get to you. Sis and the others, namely Priss, are just looking out for your best interests."

"You sound like Nene, talking like that."

Mackie smiled. "Well, you just joined the Knight Sabers recently, so you haven't had much experience with the Sabers working for other people, or being in major battles. You are, literally and figuratively, a kid compared to them. They know what they're dealing with, and, well, you don't really have a clue, to be frank. Do you honestly think that if something does happen here – which it might, or might not – you'll know what to do? Do you think you'll be able to take whatever is thrown at you? You'll be relying on your gut instinct, and have to make split-second decisions that could either save your life, or end up getting you killed. There's a lot of pressure being put on the others, Yumeko. You don't know at all what they're going through.

"Priss knows it, too. She knows you don't have the experience to be able to jump into a big fight with what little experience you have. She knows that you're very apt to make the wrong decision and end up seriously hurt or killed. She doesn't want you to go through any more than is necessary. She is your mother, after all. I think that, perhaps, she knows you better than you even know yourself.

"Yumeko, you're the one who should know what your weak points are. If you yourself doesn't even know what they are, well then, maybe you don't deserve to be in any fights that might arise."

I took the pencil I was holding in my hand, snapped it in half, and threw the two pieces to the floor. "Would you mind your own business?!" I snapped. "You're not the one that has to wonder if the others will get killed because you're forced to sit out of any potential fights!!"

"I'm worrying about the others just as much as you are, Yumeko!" Mackie shot back. "My older sister is the leader, for God sakes!! It's killing me inside, knowing that when you girls go on your shift, you might not come back!!"

"I…don't…care!!" I yelled in English, then instantly switched back to Japanese. "You're not the one that has to sit out a fight, or have to take crap from the others!! I don't need anybody else looking out for me! I can do that myself!! If I end up hurt or killed because of something I do, then so be it, but I'm not going to take all of this sitting down!!"

"…I'm sorry to hear that," Mackie said sadly.

"Good for you," I said grimly, scribbling on the English homework, then putting it in my backpack. The longer this summit dragged on, the grumpier I obviously became. How much longer could we all go on like this?

_Four more days. I only have to last four more days,_ I kept thinking. Trouble was, could I last for four more days? The first six days alone felt like six weeks; could I go four more days without snapping from the pressure?


	5. Day Seven, aka The Big Bang

Day Seven eventually showed up. From what I had read in the papers about the Boomer summit, it seemed as I feared: they weren't making any headway towards a solution for the Boomer problems. I had said it in the beginning; this summit was a waste of our time and the world leaders' time, and it proved to be true. Ten days of talks, and they would probably be for nothing at all.

Today, however, I felt that they might actually come up with some ideas. Day Seven might prove to be lucky. Was I being superstitious about seven being a lucky number? Perhaps, but then again, I had the feeling I wasn't the only person out there wondering if today might be the day.

"What's the schedule for today, Sylia?" Nene asked, sipping her coffee.

"Today, we'll be alternating between me and Yumeko, and Priss and Linna," Sylia said. "Nene, you, Linna, and Yumeko will be in one van, and Priss, Mackie, and myself will be in the other. Everyone understand?"

"I don't," I said. Everyone looked at me.

"What don't you understand?" Linna asked, curious.

"I don't understand why I have to sit out if there is going to be a fight."

"It's for your own good," Mom said, putting her hand on my shoulder. "I know you don't like it now, but later on, you'll understand why we decided to keep you out."

"Still sore over that?" Nene asked.

I glared at her. "Of course. If anything happens, I want to help put a stop to it before it gets out of hand."

"We'll continue this discussion later," Sylia interrupted. "We have to get going."

I sighed as we all got into our respective vans and headed out towards the convention center. This was getting old real fast, and I think Nene and Linna could tell, for on our way there, they inquired about why I was so hung up over being left out of any possible fights.

"I thought I explained it ten times already," I said when they inquired.

"Well, yes," Linna admitted, "but that decision was made a week ago. The summit will be over with in three days. I think you can stop with the 'hair-up-your-butt-about-a-little-thing' routine now."

"I do NOT have a hair up my butt about this whole thing. It's just…depressing that I'm being kept out. I want to be there to help."

Linna walked over to me and put her hand on my shoulder, looking sympathetic. "I understand. But being a Knight Saber doesn't give you a license to go out in your hardsuit and do whatever you want to do. There are still rules to abide by."

"Yes, I know about Articles 2 and 3 of the Knight Sabers Charter. 'Do not act upon a personal grudge' and 'Do not act without the mutual consent of all the members'." I sighed and leaned against the wall, my arms folded behind my head.

"Exactly."

"Thank God Sylia's never enforced Rule 11." I smiled smugly.

"Don't push your luck," Nene joked. "She just might have to one of these days, at the rate you've been going."

I felt like clobbering her, but Linna shushed me up and had me change into my innerwear before I had the chance to.

* * *

Almost the end of another boring day watching over the summit. I sat there and counted down the seconds until we could go home and I could go to sleep. Sitting up here made each second seem like a minute, each minute like an hour. I'd sit there for what seemed like the longest time, and when I'd check my HUD for the time, it would say only a minute and a half had gone by.

I sighed and plopped myself down on the roof where I had perched myself, and looked down at the crowd gathered in front of the heavily guarded entrance. More protesters than ever were gathered there; perhaps they thought Day Seven would prove lucky, too. I looked with interest as they shouted and tried in vain to tell the world leaders inside – they probably couldn't hear them, anyhow – to do something about the Boomers before the summit reached its 'all-too-soon' end. _Too soon, they say,_ I thought dryly. _Seems like they shoulda put an end to this thing days ago. If ya ask me, I'd say this has been going on for too LONG._

"You ok up there?" Nene asked over the comm. "You haven't said anything for the past ten minutes."

"I'm fine," I said.

"Three more days, you can hang in there."

"Think we could at least get a pizza up here or something? I've been sitting here starving for the past—"

Almost in unison, I heard Nene's, Mom's, and Sylia's voices all say, "No!!"

I was taken aback by the response. "Geez, it was a joke. But really, I am pretty hungry." At that moment, as if it was its cue, my stomach rumbled.

"We'll go get something to eat after we're done on watch, ok?" Mom said impatiently.

"But…that's not for another three hours."

"You can handle it."

I sighed and said, "Ok, I'll try to hang in there till then."

After another few minutes of sitting there, things got pretty quiet. I sighed and stared at my shadow on the ground. If I'd thought I was gonna go nuts yesterday, then today was pure torture. I would have rather done mountains of homework than just sit there doing nothing. True, Nene had said that the only thing worse than nothing happening is something happening, but damn, even a change from this hot, sticky weather would have satisfied me. It'd been like that since the summit began.

After a little while longer of sitting there, practically nodding off, I ended up starting to sing to myself.

"_Omoidashite samishii yoru wa kawarazu ni matteiru tomodachi ga iru koto o…_"

"Lovely vocals there, Yumeko," I heard Nene suddenly say gleefully. My eyes widened and I blushed.

"You…!!" I snapped. I heard her crack up.

"Seriously! You might be able to make a career for yourself out of that voice."

"No thanks. I've seen what Mom has to put up with, so that's a definite 'no way'."

"You do sound a lot like Priss, though. It's a pretty sound."

I blushed again. "Even if I did, people would only recognize me because I'm Mom's daughter. They'll think I just joined the singing bit to cash in on her fame. I'd rather make a name for myself elsewhere, and gymnastics is where it's at."

"Got a point there…"

"And don't even bring up the fact that I placed third at the World Championships, either," I reminded her, half-joking.

"Oh, I know, I know. Now if only you could apply those athletic skills to the holographic simulator, you could actually get beyond Level Seven."

"You enjoy teasing me about that, don't you!!" I yelled, starting to laugh.

"But of course!!" she sang out, joining me in laughter.

The summit was pretty boring, yes, but there were more reasons that I kept coming to it than bodyguarding the world leaders and politicians. It was because of moments like this one. It was kind of a bonding thing between us five girls, being able to joke around in the middle of all this serious work. Definitely helped to make the mood a bit lighter…

* * *

I lay there on my stomach on the floor of the equipment van, papers and binders scattered around me. So much for Day Seven being lucky; the teachers only piled on the homework even more than they usually did. Holding a banana in one hand and a pencil in the other, I ate as I worked on an essay for my Japanese history class. The topic: How could World War II have ended if the United States had never used the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? I sat there scratching the side of my head with the end of my pencil as I thought. _Good question_, I thought, grimacing as I tried to come up with a reasonable answer.

"That's a hard question to answer," Nene said, reading the question.

"I'd say that they'd probably have sent in Boomers to invade, but I keep forgetting Boomers didn't exist back then," I said.

"That's true."

"Damn it, this is hard!!" I yelled. "I'd almost rather be back on watch."

"When's it due?"

"In three days."

"How long does it have to be?"

"At least five paragraphs. And the teacher said we can't joke around with it, saying the Americans would've blown up the whole place with the satellite weapons or anything. She said we have to be serious."

"Assigning a huge essay a week and a half before finals…" Nene shook her head. "It's just like them to do that when everyone's trying to study."

"Yep." I nibbled on my banana and tapped my pencil on the paper. "They always pull something like this just when we can least afford it. I won't be surprised if a few kids commit seppuku because of all the pressure. A few kids killed themselves last year 'cause of the same thing."

Nene sighed. "I swear, they really should ease up on you guys. If kids are killing themselves because of the pressure, shouldn't that be a sign to the school officials that they're being too hard on everyone? Stupid bullheaded people…" She turned back to the computer monitor and asked Linna and Mom how everything was.

"Just dandy," Linna said in her usual cheerful voice.

"Nothin' happening from my view," Mom added.

"Ok. Just speak up if anything suspicious is going on. Nene over and out."

I crumpled up my paper in anger, cursed, and threw it across the van. It bounced along the ground before coming to a stop at Nene's feet. She looked down, picked up the crumpled paper, and threw it in the trash.

"Having trouble?" she asked, walking over to me.

"Let's just say I'm starting to understand why some of those kids copped out and did away with themselves," I grumbled, putting both hands up to my face and moving them up through my hair to get the bangs out of my eyes.

She put her hand on my shoulder. "It's ok to be stressed out. It's normal to feel overwhelmed, but don't go and do what those other kids did just because of one little essay. It's just that: an essay, something that you'll forget about once you've done it."

"Right…"

Suddenly, I heard an explosion, and the ground simultaneously started to shake. I tried to stand up, but could barely do so what with the ground shaking and all. "What the—" I exclaimed, quite surprised by the sudden move. That was no earthquake…

"What happened?! What happened?!" Nene yelled into the comm as I dashed to her side, asking the same thing.

"An explosion at the convention center!!" Linna yelled back. "Priss and I are going to see what's up!! You and Sylia better come too; this doesn't look good!!"

"Right!!" Nene said, disconnecting. She ran to her hardsuit and started to step into it.

"What about me?!" I asked as she reached her arms into the suit.

"Stay here!" she said as the armor folded itself and closed over her chest and abdomen. "This is probably going to get ugly."

"That's why I should go, too!!" I shot at her, my fists clenched.

"You have your orders!!" Nene shot back at me. I stepped back in surprise; she'd never used that tone of voice with me before. "I'm sorry, but you were told to stay put if anything happens. If we need backup, we'll call for you, ok?"

My shoulders slumped as I sighed and gave in. She slipped her helmet over her head and turned to me. "Everyone will be fine," she tried to assure me.

I looked at her and started to get tears in my eyes. I couldn't stand it if anything were to happen to my Aunt Nene. Just the thought of it made my stomach turn. I shook my head to get them out of my eyes and hugged her.

"Just do one thing for me…" I said, my voice choking. "Just come back alive!!"

Nene was surprised at this show of emotion, and lifted her visor to look at me. She wrapped her arms around me and held me close. "Yumeko…you don't need to worry. I'll be back. I promise."

"You better be!" I said, stepping back, wiping the tears from my eyes.

"Remember, we'll call for you if we need help," she said one last time before opening the roof hatch and climbing through. "Later now!"

After she disappeared through the hatch, I stood there, looking through that open space in the roof, and wondered if I would ever see Aunt Nene alive again…

* * *

"Isn't this just great!!" I said dryly to myself as I leaped from my perch and headed towards the explosion. How truly ironic that Boomers would be attacking a Boomer summit. It was something that practically begged to occur, in my opinion.

"Hurry up, Priss!" I heard Linna yell to me over the comm.

"All right, already!!" I yelled back, landing in the street. The smoke seemed to fill the air so that I'd hardly be able to breathe if not for my helmet. I ran my scanner for any Boomers, but none showed up on them. _Damn,_ I cursed to myself, trying to peer through the smoke.

"Priss!!" I heard a high-pitched voice call to me. I turned around and saw a familiar red-and-pink hardsuit run towards me.

"What the hell are you doing, Nene?!" I snapped.

Nene stopped in front of me, panting, and said, "Gotta provide some backup, right? Well, here I am. Have you seen Linna or Sylia anywhere?"

"Nuh-uh," I said, shaking my head. "Can't find the Boomers or whoever attacked the building either."

"HEY!!" Linna suddenly screamed over the comm. "We need help over here, NOW!!"

Nene gasped. "That was Linna!!"

"C'mon!!" I said, grabbing her by the arm and running through the smoke towards where my scanner said Linna and Sylia were.

When Nene and I reached the steps to the convention center, we were greeted by the sound of gunfire and small explosions. The little redhead next to me started trembling, but I dragged her up the steps and inside. "Don't chicken out on me now, you hear?"

"But…but…that doesn't sound good at all."

"Does it EVER sound good? Now come—" Before I could finish, a group of freaked-out men ran into us. They were dressed in business suits, which probably meant they were some of the 'big important' politicians that we'd been hired to protect. When they saw us, they screamed in terror.

"No!! Don't hurt us, please!!" one of them said while the others cowered behind him.

"It's ok, we're not going to hurt you," Nene said in as calm a voice as she could manage. "We're not Boomers."

"You…you're not going to kill us then?" another one asked, as if he didn't believe what Nene was saying.

"Of course not. We're here to protect you."

I looked to her and said, "While I'm inside helping the others, how 'bout you get these guys outta here before they get hurt."

"R…right!" she said, slowly nodding before motioning for the men to follow her.

Once inside the main hall, I took a quick look around. God damn, the place was a mess. Turned over tables, scorched rugs, even scorch marks on the walls. It looked like I had gotten there too late, but then I heard the same gunshots that I'd heard earlier. Guess it wasn't over yet, after all. I dashed down the hall, hoping to get there in time to help the others, but then, I was met by a wall of fire heading towards me. I was thrown back onto the floor by the explosion, and when I got back to my feet, I saw a Boomer standing there, waiting for me. I'd say it stood about three meters tall, with black metal plating on its skin for armor, and glowing red eyes that felt like they could see right through me if I dared look at it in them. Its body was swollen with huge synthetic muscles that bulged so much, it made me wonder if they'd pop at any second.

"Boomer…!" I gasped, frozen in shock.

"Well, no shit, Sherlock!!" it said, and promptly charged towards me with amazing speed. I barely had time to react before it swung its melon-sized fist at me. I just barely jumped backwards in time to avoid being hit. It swung at me again, and this time I ducked the punch and punched the Boomer in the stomach with my Knuckle Bomber. The bastard wasn't even fazed by it; it simply stood there for a second, then was on the attack again.

"Shit!" I said to myself, trying to dodge the barrage of punches that came my way.

"Why don't you hold still like a good girl?" it asked, laughing as I jumped over its fist and leaped over its towering body. Landing behind it, I attempted to grab it in a bear hug so it wouldn't be able to move. Once the Boomer was in my grasp, I started to pull on its arms, hoping to, well, disarm it.

"Not so…high and mighty now, are ya?!" I taunted, pulling on its arms.

Suddenly, a familiar voice bellowed out over the comm, "What's going on over there?! Are you guys ok?"

"Shut up!" I yelled, still trying to keep my grip on the struggling Boomer. "We're a bit busy at the moment!"

"Well, I can tell YOU'RE ok," Yume said dryly. "You sound like you could use some help."

"Stay where you are!! I'll tell you if we need help!"

"You sure?" She sounded skeptical.

"Just stay out of this!!" I said, disconnecting before she had a chance to respond.

I knew that Yume was just concerned about us, but that little intervention of hers had distracted me, and that gave the Boomer a chance to attack. I saw it raise up its right leg, and I knew exactly what it was going to do, but before I could raise up my legs to dodge it, it kicked backwards. Its foot slammed into my lower leg, and I screamed as I felt a jolt of pain and heard the sound of a bone breaking. I attempted to keep my grip on the Boomer, despite the obvious pain I was in, but with one thrust of its torso, I lost my grip and fell to the ground.

"God….damn!!" I groaned, grabbing my leg. The Boomer stood over me and laughed.

"You look like you're in pain," it teased. I looked up and gritted my teeth as it crossed its arms over its chest.

"You bastard…!" I said, attempting to stand up, but my right leg wasn't exactly able to hold any weight at the moment, and I fell to one knee, groaning with the pain that simple movement caused.

"This looks like the end for you, Miss Blue Saber," it said, uncrossing its arms and walking towards me, eerily calm.

"Gee, too bad you and I don't see this the same way!" I wisecracked, raising my arm and firing a few railgun needles through its chest. The Boomer didn't even try to dodge the needles, or slap them away, or anything; it just stood there as the three of them went barreling towards it.

"Gotcha!" I said, only to gasp when the Boomer just stood there, the needles poking out its chest, apparently unaffected by them.

It pulled one needle out of its chest, looked at it, and sneered. "You should be careful where you're aiming these things," it said sarcastically. "You could put someone's eye out with these." Holding it in its fingers almost like someone about to throw a dart at a dartboard, the Boomer aimed the needle at me and grinned. For a brief moment, I had a flashback to my battle with Largo, when he'd done much the same thing before spearing me in the shoulder with one of my needles. _This can't be happening again,_ I thought grimly. I tried to get up so I could dodge it, but my throbbing leg refused to do anything, and I dropped to my knees again. Before I knew it, the needle came speeding towards me. A split-second later, I felt something hit my abdomen and jerk my body backwards. I gasped with the sharp pain and slowly looked down, only to see the needle sticking out of my suit, the fresh blood covering part of it. I silently cursed, then fell to my hands and knees, my body trembling with the pain.

"Honestly, I was expecting something a bit more from you," the Boomer said, running over to me and giving me a quick kick in the stomach, knocking the wind out of me and snapping off most of the needle. I stumbled backwards a few painful steps, then fell down on my ass, gasping for air. Damn, was this humiliating or what!! I wasn't even outnumbered, and here I was getting my ass kicked!!

I wobbled to my feet slowly, trying to put as much of my weight as possible on my good leg, holding my stomach in pain. "You'll…have to…do better than that to take me down," I said, forcing an evil grin.

"Well, well, she's not down for the count after all," it said, grinning, if you could call the look on its face a grin, anyway. "I'm somewhat impressed."

It was about to make its next move when suddenly, a high-pitched voice bellowed through the hall. "Priss!!" I heard Nene gasp when she arrived. The Boomer turned around to face her and smirked.

"Another one wants to play, eh?"

"Nene…get out of here!!" I yelled, trying to stay on my feet and pull out the needle in my stomach at the same time.

"Yeah, better listen to your friend here," the Boomer advised, chuckling.

"You leave her alone, you jerk!" Nene said, starting to tremble a little. She aimed her laser gun at the Boomer, trying to act like she was dead serious. Honestly, if she was gonna try to 'save' me, she could've at least not looked cowardly about it! She might as well have said, "Leave her alone, but please don't hurt ME!!"

"You honestly think you can hurt me with that little toy of yours?" the Boomer inquired, and started to walk towards her. Almost to my surprise, Nene kept her gun aimed at its head, though she was also taking a few steps back to keep her distance.

"You…you stay away!!" she said, firing off a laser. It hit the Boomer right in the face, but from my view, it didn't do any damage whatsoever. At that same time, I actually managed to yank the railgun needle out of my abdomen, crying out in pain as I did so. I almost fell to my knees again, it hurt so much. Both the Boomer and Nene looked in my direction to see what I was making such fuss about. I held up the needle to them – a good eight centimeters of it was dripping blood – then threw it to the ground.

"Priss…!" Nene gasped in disbelief.

"Heh. What a stubborn girl," the Boomer said, turning around to face me again.

"Don't count me out yet," I growled, the pain in both my leg and stomach excruciating. It was a wonder that I was still conscious, let alone standing up, after what I'd just been through. I'm sure the Boomer was thinking that same thing.

"Oh, I wasn't," it said. "I was hoping to have some more fun with you, anyw—" It was interrupted by a barrage of gunshots from behind, and turned around to see Nene firing at it rapidly, practically in panic.

"Nene, you…idiot!!" I yelled as the Boomer ran at her. She'd be a goner for sure!

Nene stopped firing in time to see the charging Boomer, and ducked as it swung its fist at her. She squirmed between its legs and ran towards me, screaming in fear.

"No no no!!" she yelled, then abruptly turned around and faced the Boomer, preventing it from getting to me without having to go through her first.

"What do you think you're doing?" I inquired.

"You're not gonna hurt her anymore!!" she said to the Boomer, holding out her arms as if she was trying to be a roadblock or something. How un-Nene-like this was. This girl I'd known for almost twenty-four years and had not hardly once tried to show anything resembling courage in battle was here willing to give her life for me. I was awestruck, to say the least. It looked more like something I'd do than her; she was the last person I'd expect something like this from.

"A kid like you is going to try to protect your blue friend from the likes of me?" it asked, apparently quite amused by the sight.

"You don't need to do this for me!!" I snapped.

"You…you have to live!" she said, sounding like she was going to cry. "For Yumeko's sake, and for your own! I won't let you die!!"

"Wh…" Surely Nene didn't mean that she was willing to throw away her life!! It couldn't be!! And yet…it rang so true…

"Oh, I'm so touched," the Boomer said, its voice dripping with sarcasm. "But it's time for battle now, not melodrama!!" It charged towards Nene and me, fully intent on imploding our heads, I'm sure. Nene held her position in front of me, even as it drew ever closer to us. Finally, when the Boomer got about five meters from us, we both jumped to the side at the same time it was swinging its fist, and instead of hitting us, it hit the wall, making a large hole in it.

"You ok, Priss?" Nene asked. When we'd both jumped and ducked, she'd happened to land on top of me, and now, as if I wasn't in enough pain before, having her on top of me only made it twice as bad. I shoved her off of me and moaned in pain as I put my hand to the hole in my suit where the needle had been. Blood was flowing steadily out of it, making a big red splotch in the middle of my grey stomach armor.

"You can't get away from me," the Boomer growled, looking down at us.

"LOOK OUT!!" Nene screamed, throwing herself on top of me. Before I could get her off of me, the Boomer's fist came down on us, and a second later, I heard a piercing scream above me. I opened my eyes – I hadn't realized I'd even squeezed them shut – and I saw Nene with her back arched, screaming in pain as the Boomer's fist hit her in the back. She then went silent and collapsed in my arms.

"NENE!!" I screamed, sitting up and cradling her in my arms. "C'mon, say something!!" I shook her gently, but she didn't respond. I started trembling with anger. This couldn't be happening…Nene had been willing to sacrifice herself to save me, and now she had done it. I shook my head in disbelief, the tears welling up in my eyes.

"I must admit, she was a gutsy girl, albeit wimpy," the Boomer said, watching the scene. I snapped my head up at him, eyes blazing.

"You…" I placed Nene against the nearby wall and slowly stood up, my whole body trembling from both pain and rage. "You dare hurt one of my friends?!"

"I dare," the Boomer answered, making me all the angrier.

"You BASTARD!!" I screamed, activating my jumpjets and flying towards the Boomer. I formed my hand into a fist, ready to blow its head off with my Knuckle Bomber, then suddenly, the Boomer's fist came out of nowhere.

It hit me dead-on in the chest. I felt an extremely sharp pain as my body was sent flying backwards to the floor. The blow made my vision flash white from the pain for a second, and then, everything went black.

* * *

My head jerked up when I heard a high-pitched scream blare from the comm. Hands shaking, I picked up the headphone and put it on. _Oh God, please don't let her be hurt,_ I prayed to myself, my wobbling knees barely able to keep me standing up.

"Mom? Mom?!" I yelled. "Are you ok?! Please, answer me!!"

No response.

"Mom, this is your Yume talking to you!! Are you ok?!" I started to panic when there was still no response.

"MOM!!" My teeth started to chatter, I was so scared of what might have happened to her. I wrung my hands and hoped that the worst-case scenario – her getting killed – hadn't come to pass. Finally, after what seemed like forever, I heard a soft moan over the comm.

"Mom, can you hear me?" I tried to ask in the calmest voice I could manage. "Are you ok?"

"S…son of a…" I heard Mom moan to herself.

"Mom?"

"I'm…fine…" Just after she said that, I heard her cry out in pain and then, I heard a thud; I was guessing she'd tried to get up, then collapsed.

"No you're not!!" I retorted. "You sound like you've been through the river!! Is anyone there helping you?"

"If…you consider…a knocked-out-cold Nene any help…then yes."

"Nene's down too?!" My hands started to tremble again. _No, no, no,_ I kept repeating to myself. This couldn't be happening!! Just fifteen minutes before, I'd wondered if I would see her alive again, and now, it turned out that I might not, after all!! I shook my head repeatedly, refusing to believe it, and yet, my heart felt heavy with the truth.

"How…how many Boomers are there?" I asked, my voice shaking like a leaf.

"One that creamed Nene and me…and one that…that Linna and Sylia are fighting," she groaned. "There…could be more, but not from…from what I've seen."

Suddenly, over the comm, I could make out a deep, mechanical voice in the background. I gasped and tried to warn Mom about it. I think she noticed, for I heard her say "Huh…?", but right afterwards, she screamed, and then, her voice came through the comm no longer.

"NO!!" I screamed to no one in particular. I stomped my foot down on the ground, cursed aloud, and ran to my hardsuit. This was more than I could stand. No matter what Sylia or the others had said, I was NOT willing to just sit by while my friends were getting taken down like the Ten Little Indians. I stepped into my hardsuit, and as the armor closed over my arms, legs, and torso, I swore then and there that the Boomers wouldn't get away with what they'd done. As I slipped on my helmet, I could've sworn I heard Mackie yell something over the comm, asking something like, "Do you want to turn this into a kamikaze mission or something?!"

Even though I don't know if he could hear me, I mumbled, "If it's gonna turn into that, then that's fine by me."

* * *

I flew over the building in front of me and hightailed it as fast as I could towards the convention center. If I let anything else happen to Mom, Nene, or the others, I could never forgive myself. After all, it was because of me staying out of the fight in the first place that they were in trouble. _Hang on, you two,_ I thought as I approached the front steps. _I'm gonna make sure you make it home. I swear it! If I get killed saving you, then fine!!_

As I ran up the front steps and to the entrance, I stopped in my tracks. My heart was bumping so fast it felt like it was gonna burst out of my hardsuited chest. I took a few deep breaths to try to calm myself down, which didn't really help any. As I crossed myself, I said aloud, "God help me," and ran inside.

Strange as it was, when I ran inside, I was greeted by an eerie silence. I looked around the entrance hall, but saw nobody. After a few seconds, I quickly remembered what I had come there for, and immediately ran my scanner for the others. Linna and Sylia were at the north end of the building, and Mom and Nene were in the south end, where I was. I sighed with relief as I knew that Mom and Nene were close by, but the strange thing was that no Boomers had shown up on my scanner. _Hopefully they just decided to leave, _I thought, my legs starting to shake underneath me. This certainly wasn't good… If the Boomers couldn't be detected, then how the hell was I supposed to find them?! I tried to dispel that thought from my mind for now, and concentrated on rescuing Mom and Nene.

A slight booming noise made me jump in surprise. I realized that it came from the area where Mom and Nene were, and quickly ran to where they were. _No no no, don't die on me now, Mom!,_ I screamed in my head.

I reached the area where the noise came from in no time at all, and I was lucky for that, too; in front of my eyes stood a huge black Boomer, holding Mom by her throat, looking ready to finish her off. I popped out my right lasersword and pointed it at the Boomer.

"Hold it," I said.

The Boomer, at the sound of my voice, looked up and directed its attention towards me.

"Ah. So here she is," it sneered. "Mighty Mouse, here to save the day."

_Ugh, not another smart-ass Boomer,_ I thought, disgusted. I decided to play along, however. "Great, a 20th century cartoon fanatic," I teased. "The next thing I know, you're gonna say 'Moon Prism Power Make Up' and KO me with your Crescent Moon Wand!!"

The Boomer grinned, if you could call it that. "Cocky, aren't we."

"Just drop her," I threatened. Somehow I saw it coming, but the Boomer did just that. It released its grip on Mom's throat, and she went dropping to the floor. I gasped and was about to run towards her when the Boomer held out its hand, warning me not to make a move.

"You told me to drop her, remember." There was that evil sneer on its face again.

"You…" I growled. This bastard was just trying to push my buttons, I know, but it was doing a damn good job of it. "You really have a death wish, you know that?"

"Judging from what I know of your past actions, I'd say you're the one with the death wish," it retorted, still with that sneer on its face.

"Hm," I said, lowering my arm, and closed my eyes, smiling. "I admit I was probably a bit reckless in the past, but it won't happen tonight." I opened my eyes and glared at it. "I hope you've made out your will, because you are not going to be leaving here with that head on your shoulders!!"

"I hope you are able to live up to what you say, girl. It would be a disappointment to see you get pounded into the ground without doing what you intended, am I right?"

I grinned evilly. "Oh, I intend to do just that. And I will not be pounded into the ground, like you say. I'm going to rip that head off your shoulders and impale it on my sword for everyone to see!!"

The Boomer returned the grin. "We shall see."

It charged towards me with quite a bit of speed, more than I would have expected from a thing as bulky as it was. It swung its huge fist at me, and I raised my arm to block it. As its fist slammed into my arm, I popped out the lasersword on my left arm and swung at its head. The Boomer noticed the move and jumped back just in time. It charged again, and I jumped up and over it, doing a few flips in the air before landing behind it. It instantly turned around and headed towards me again, to which I responded by running a few steps towards it, and jump-kicking it in the chest with my Leg Bombers. Then, using my Knuckle Bomber, I delivered an uppercut to its head, followed by a slash in the chest with my lasersword. As the Boomer stumbled back, mostly in surprise, orange fluids gushed from the open wound in its chest, spilling to the ground.

"Damn you, girl…!" it growled, its hand to its chest.

"Wanna try me again?!" I snapped, bracing myself for the next attack. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Nene just now coming to, attempting to get up. _Get away, Nene,_ I thought, as if I expected her to hear my thoughts, which she couldn't, of course. _Hurry up and go!_

"Whatcha standin' there for?!" the Boomer shot at me, charging at me like a rampaging bull. I ran towards it, popping out my lasersword at the same time, ready to finish this bastard off for good. Then, out of nowhere, it did its own version of a spinning kick, turning its right side back, then raising its left leg at me. Before I knew it, I found myself slamming into a nearby wall and slumping to the ground, the right side of my head feeling like it'd been hit by a sledgehammer.

"You…bastard," I groaned, holding my hand to my pounding head, wincing with the pain that caused. I almost expected the Boomer to reply with one of its smart-ass remarks, but it kept on the attack, swinging its fist at my head again. I jerked my head to the side just in time to avoid the fist, and as it crashed through the wall, the Boomer swung at me with its other fist. Almost as if by reflex, I screamed and punched it in the stomach with my Knuckle Bomber, at the same time firing some of my discs through its gut. As the Boomer fell back, I slowly stood up, trying to blink away the double vision that started to interfere with my sight.

"Had…enough yet?" I panted, my head starting to pound again. I winced again at the pain.

The Boomer slowly got to its feet, its front completely orange with artificial blood. I heard a low growl come from its throat; reminded me of a dog's growl. "Had enough, she says," it mocked. Any other 'regular' Combat Boomer, like a 55C, probably would have been dead after all the damage I'd inflicted on it, but not this one. It just stood there, its hand to its chest, looking like it was ready for Round Two. _Just how much can a damn Boomer take?!,_ I asked myself.

"Yume…" I heard a low voice say over my comm. "Stay back."

"M…Mom?!" I exclaimed. Was that concussion already making me hear voices, or was that really Mom I'd heard?!

"Stay back," she repeated, sounding like she was in extreme pain. Trying to make it not look too conspicuous, I peered over the Boomer's shoulder, and there was my blue-hardsuited mom, standing on wobbly feet, looking like she was about to attack. _How can she even be standing?!,_ I thought.

The Boomer, however, without even looking behind its back, already seemed to know that Mom was conscious. "I suggest you don't try anything," it warned her, eyeing me, "unless you want Miss Purple Midget to end up as a smear on the wall."

"Your talk…is getting old REAL quick," she spat back, taking a small step forward, her hand on the hole in her hardsuit. What had happened to her to have her end up in this bad of shape? "Why dontcha just shut up and fight for once?"

For a split-second, the Boomer glared back at Mom, and I took that opportunity to dash forward and attack. I popped out my lasersword, swung it above my head, and with a holler, I cut into its left shoulder and started cutting to its right, trying to decapitate it. The Boomer let out a howl that practically sounded like a dying animal, and grabbed me by the sword I was cutting with. I then jumped up and kicked it in the chin with my Leg Bomber and did a back-flip to get out of its grip. Once I landed, I popped out the lasersword on my left arm, raised it above my head, and slashed down, cutting it from its right collarbone – where it would be if it had one, anyway – down to its right thigh.

Mom decided to lend a hand, and leapt forward, slapped two S-Mines on the Boomer, and leapt away again. I jumped backwards in time to avoid the resulting explosion, which sent a huge fireball all the way to the ceiling and sent scorched Boomer parts flying. A few seconds later, I saw Mom fall to her knees, and I ran to her.

"Mom, are you ok?!" I asked, kneeling down in front of her.

"Been better," she quipped, putting her trembling hand to her chest.

"What the hell happened to you?"

"I was just…gonna say the same thing," she said, pointing at the side of my helmet. I put my hand to it, and realized there were several cracks where the Boomer had kicked me.

"That Boomer gave me a damn concussion, I think. With one cheap-ass kick. That answer your question?" The right side of my head began to throb again, making me groan.

"Cheap shots are what…gave me all these," Mom said, indicating her injuries. I looked her over, trying not to let the double vision get in my way. There were some cracks in the armor on her lower right leg…a hole in the armor on her abdomen, along with a smear of blood…and a few huge cracks in her chest armor. I shook my head in disbelief, which only made my head hurt more.

"Ow," I moaned, putting my hand to my head.

"Easy now," she said, flinching when she tried to stand up. I looked up at her.

"How…how the heck can you stand up on that leg?!"

"Willpower, I suppose." She bent down and pulled me to my feet.

"And what about your chest?"

"Probably the same thing, I dunno. That bastard damn near killed Nene, then he got me here," she said, pounding her chest with her fist, then lurched forward with the resulting pain.

"Hey, watch it!" I exclaimed, putting my hands on her shoulders. "Speaking of which…" I looked over at where I had saw Nene earlier, and saw that she was up and walking towards us.

"Ouch…" she moaned, her hand on her side.

"Nene, you ok?!" I yelled, starting to run to her, when my head started to spin. I stopped and tried to shake it off, then when I felt better, walked a bit more slowly to her.

"Me? I'm in a lot of pain," she whimpered, stating the obvious. "I think…I think I have a couple broken ribs…" She then started to cough violently, making her whole body shake. "Make that…a possible punctured lung too," she wheezed after the coughing ceased.

I looked from Nene to Mom, sighing. "I don't think you can fight in the conditions you two are in."

Mom dismissed what I'd said with a wave of her hand, saying, "Bullshit. Take Nene back, but I'm staying."

"You can't be serious!" I said.

A sudden explosion behind us made us all jump in surprise. I spun around to confront this new threat, and in the cloud of smoke, I saw a large, muscular silhouette.

"Pity," I heard a deep, mechanical voice say. "The armored bitches are still alive."

"Damn straight!" I retorted, clenching my hands into fists. Where the hell were Sylia and Linna when we needed them?! The Boomer looked down at me with glowing red eyes, and sneered.

"So, the child has joined the fight, eh?"

"You…you leave her alone!" Nene yelled hoarsely, holding her side still.

"What could YOU possibly do?" the Boomer spat at her, still sneering. "I know you can't fight worth a damn, and I'm sure your friends know it too."

I got into a fighting stance, sensing that it was about to make its move. The Boomer looked back at me. "What, you don't want your death to wait a few more seconds? This is actually enjoyable, watching you three stand there trembling in fear."

"Who's trembling?" I retorted. At that moment, I realized that Nene and Mom wouldn't stand a chance in their conditions. I had to get them out of here, but the Boomer would probably kill us all in the process…

"Mom, Nene," I said into the comm, the Boomer looking on in amusement. "I need you to get out of here."

"I told you, I'm not leaving," Mom responded, eerily calm.

"You can't fight this thing by yourself, Yumeko!" Nene cried.

"Hey, it's not like dying is on my schedule for this week," I quipped. "I don't think it's on anybody's, actually. But you have to trust me. If you don't leave, you'll be killed!"

"Sorry to interrupt," the Boomer quipped, "but your collect call is now canceled!!" It charged forward and suddenly, it popped out a lasersword of its OWN. My blood ran cold at the sight and shock of it.

"What the bloody hell?!" I yelled, parrying the attack with my own lasersword. The Boomer pressed down against me, and my arm started to shake with the pressure of trying to keep it back.

"Who's to say you're the only one who can have a fancy toy?" it asked, pressing down even harder. I groaned with the attempt to keep it at bay. I knew I wouldn't be able to hold it off much longer; this Boomer was much stronger than I was.

"Bastard!!" I heard Mom yell as she whizzed by me and kicked the Boomer in the head with her Leg Bombers. The Boomer promptly responded by throwing her off it with a thrust of its arm, then went back to me, repeating the attack it did before. I gasped in surprise and blocked the sword again, this time using both of mine.

"You're good, girl," it purred. "But…I'm afraid your tactics won't do you any good."

The Boomer raised its leg and kicked me in the stomach. I stumbled back in shock as the Boomer ran towards me again. It raised its would-be lasersword to about shoulder-level, and then with one swooping move, brought it down. I attempted to jump back, but as I felt a sharp pain travel swiftly across my stomach, I knew the move had been futile.

I vaguely heard Nene gasp in shock. "Yumeko!!" she screamed. She was only ten meters from me, but her voice sounded like it was so far away. I heard Mom scream my name too, but in the time it took her to do that, she could have possibly prevented what happened next. While I stumbled back slowly from the latest attack, my arm to my stomach armor, trying to stem the blood that flowed freely through the opening in my suit, the Boomer charged forward and punched me in the face. I didn't even have time to scream as it then punched me over and over, pinning me to the wall with no way to escape. I heard Nene scream again as with one punch, the Boomer sent me literally through the wall, sending me skidding across the floor of the next room on my back.

I opened my eyes slowly, gritting my teeth with the extreme pain that panged my stomach. When my vision became clearer, I slowly recalled where I was and what had happened. And then, as I felt the air upon my face, another realization hit me: my faceplate was broken.

"Oh…shit," I cursed, trying to sit up, only to fall down again, hollering bloody murder in pain. I held up my arm, and saw it was covered in blood, my blood.

"Still conscious…stubborn girl," I heard the Boomer say, crushing rubble beneath its feet as it strided towards me. I put the palms of my hands to the floor, and tried to push myself away, but the Boomer reached me much faster than I could get away, and held down one of my arms with its foot, while the other one was on my torso.

"Oh God no," I said, trying to keep my faint hold on consciousness. How I wished this was all a bad dream. I could just wake up in my bedroom, and everything would be ok. Mom would be sleeping in her bed on the other side of the room, the clock would tick on, and I wouldn't be laying here on the floor with a gaping wound in my stomach and a Boomer standing on top of me!!

"Just give up and die," the Boomer encouraged, pressing down on my ribs with its foot, making me cry out in pain. "You can't fight anymore. Just give up."

"I'm not…giving up," I spat, shaking my head. "No way, nuh-uh." I tried to get up, to get this bastard off of me, but all the strength seemed to have left my body. I was helpless literally under this thing's feet.

"Be that way, but you'll only be harder on yourself," it chided, stepping off of me, but only to deliver a swift kick to my side. I yelled in pain and rolled over onto my injured gut. By now, I was in so much pain, I was gasping, ever wondering why Linna and Sylia had not come yet. _I need help,_ I thought. _Somebody…please…_

"Die, bitch," it said, stomping on my back. I screamed with the agony it caused me. Before I could even get my breath back, it stomped again. This time, I felt some of my ribs crack.

"Leave her alone!!" I heard Nene scream from the other room as the Boomer stomped on me again.

"Get out!!" I yelled to her just before the Boomer brought its foot down for about the fifth time. "Hurry…up!!"

"If you were wise, you'd listen to your half-dead friend here," the Boomer wisecracked, cracking and breaking a few more ribs as it stomped on me again. By now, I was in pure agony. I'd never been in so much pain in my life. I thought getting shot in the shoulder had been damn painful, but that in comparison to this was like comparing the cuts I had on my face now to getting a limb cut off; they CAN'T be compared.

Just when I thought I was done for, I heard a high-pitched yell, and then an explosion. I felt the great weight of the Boomer suddenly lift off my back and then disappear as the Boomer went flying into the wall.

"YOU should be the one to run away," I heard a familiar voice say. My eyes fluttered open, and I saw a green hardsuit standing there, arms crossed, ribbon cutters dangling from the helmet.

"Heh…L-Linna…" I moaned, forcing a small smile, being on the brink of passing out. "You finally…got here…"

"About time I got to play with another one," the Boomer said, smirking.

"Linna!!" Nene exclaimed.

"Where the hell you been?!" Mom snapped.

"Don't matter to me," the Boomer said.

"Of course it wouldn't," I muttered dryly, still flat on the ground. Mom limped over to me and crouched down next to me.

"Hey, you ok?" she asked.

"What does it…look like?" I responded, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

She chuckled. "Yep, you're still very much alive, all right."

"Priss, Yumeko," we suddenly heard Sylia say, "you should get out of here, now." We both looked to where Linna stood, and there was Sylia right there with her.

"Oh…sure, once we get nearly killed, THEN you get here," I groaned.

"Enough with the talk already," the Boomer interrupted, charging the two remaining uninjured Sabers. Both Linna and Sylia ran at it and decked it in the chest with their Knuckle Bombers. Continuing the attack, they drove the Boomer through the hole in the wall that Linna had made just moments before. While they kept it busy, Mom tried to help me up, lifting me up by my shoulders to get me sitting up. I moaned with pain.

"Oh God," I groaned, starting to cough violently, which made my broken ribs flare up in pain. Nene, who had just arrived, gasped and bent down to support me. I felt the blood build up in my mouth, and coughed it out. Both Nene and Mom jumped back in surprise.

"Yume…" Mom said, shaken up by the sight.

"I'm ok, I think," I said once I was done coughing, wiping away the blood dribbling from my mouth down my chin with the back of my hand.

"Ok? What about this?" Nene asked, pointing to my stomach. I slowly looked down and saw a long gash in the stomach armor of my hardsuit. Around it, the grey armor was stained red with my own blood. My eyes widened at the sight, and at the same time, my head started to swim again.

"It's…just a flesh wound," I said in a pathetic attempt to assure her not to worry.

"Flesh wound, ha. You've probably lost one or two pints of blood, and you say it's a flesh wound," she said, shaking her head.

"Yume, hold still a sec," Mom said, raising her laser gun to me.

"What're you doing…?" I asked, starting to shake.

"Gonna try and stop that bleeding," she said, scooting herself next to me. "Hold very still, and try not to scream." She aimed her laser gun at the side of my armor, and fired, sending a little pink laser across the slash in my armor. I started to scream with the pain, but she quickly slapped her hand across my mouth and wrapped her other arm around me in an effort to prevent me from collapsing.

"What the hell you doin'?!" I snapped once the pain subsided enough for me to sit up on my own. "Trying to put me out of my misery or what?!"

"Heat stops bleeding, right?" she answered calmly. "That probably should slow it down for now, but we still hafta get you outta here before that Boomer comes back."

"No… I'm gonna go and help Sylia and Linna fight that Boomer," I said, starting to stand up.

"You're in no condition to fight, Yumeko, and you know it!!" Nene snapped, standing up and grabbing me by the shoulders. "You know what it did to you before! If you try to fight it in the shape you're in, you'll be killed for sure!"

"If I can still breathe, I can still fight," I told her, "and I intend to."

"You've lost your mind," Mom said. "Even I know better than that."

"Oh, do you?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

She was just about to answer when we all heard a loud scream, and then Linna came crashing through the wall behind us. I gasped and took a step towards her, then almost fell to my knees with the tremendous pain that throbbed through my whole body.

"Linna!" Nene gasped, walking gingerly towards her and bending down.

"It's…got Sylia…" Linna groaned, pulling herself up.

"Shit," Mom cursed, activating her jumpjets and heading in the direction that Linna had just come from.

"Hang on! Let me help you!" I called to her.

"Oh no you don't," Nene said, grabbing my shoulder, holding me back. "You're practically bleeding to death as it is."

"I need to go help her!!" I retorted, elbowing her in the stomach, making me wince in pain as the pain flared up in my stomach and ribs again.

"Would you stop being so damn stubborn?!" she yelled. The next thing I knew, I felt a sharp pain on my cheek as my head was jerked to the side. Raising my hand to my cheek, I blinked in surprise and just stared at her, dumbstruck.

"You can't…get yourself killed," she said, her voice getting choked up. "I'm not gonna let you…throw your life away…"

I smirked, not at the slap, but what I had heard come out of her mouth. "Nene Romanova, I believe I just heard you curse."

She jerked her head up at me, looking positively dumbfounded. "What… Does that matter now?! We're trying to stay alive, and you're making a fuss about—"

"Heh. Forget it," I said, still grinning. "I probably deserved that. But anyway, Sylia's probably still in a world of shit right now."

I hadn't meant for that to be taken literally, but when Nene and I – Linna had gone ahead – reached the hall where Sylia was, that's exactly what she was in. The Boomer had her in both of its hands, grasping her arms, and was pushing them into her, which was essentially crushing her.

"Sylia!!" I yelled, my legs wobbling in the effort to keep me up.

"Let her go!!" Mom yelled, flying towards it with a blur of speed, and kicked it in the head with her Leg Bombers – the ones on her broken leg, no less. She realized that right away, for once she jumped away, she cursed and grabbed it. The Boomer, however, didn't relinquish its hold on the grey-armored leader of the KS, and in fact, actually squeezed her tighter. Sylia screamed in pain.

Linna ran up and spun around twice, sending her ribbons cutting through the Boomer's side. It groaned in anger and orange fluids started gushing from its side, but it still didn't release Sylia.

"She's gonna get crushed!!" Nene yelled.

"Not while I'm here," I assured her, aiming my discs at it, and even though I couldn't aim very well without my faceplate now, I fired a few discs anyway, sending them spiraling towards the Boomer. One of the discs cut into its shoulder, which was enough to get it to drop Sylia.

"You're still alive, you purple midget?" it said, very pissed off now.

"Of course," I said, grinning and panting with the energy that one move took out of me. "I'm not your average fly in the soup."

"Heh. I see," it said. "But now it's the exterminator's turn." The Boomer raised its hand at me, palm in my direction, and then fired.

At that moment, time seemed to stop. Everyone was frozen in whatever position they were in, except their heads were all turned in my direction when the Boomer shot at me. I felt my entire body go numb when it hit me, the explosive feeling traveling through me before exploding out behind me. The blood drained from my face, and I just stood there for a moment afterward, in shock, not believing what had just occurred. And then, I slumped to the floor, my left leg twitching all the while.

Everyone stood there in shock for a moment, and then, the realization hit them that what they had seen was not a figment of their imagination, like they wanted to believe.

"Yu…Yumeko," Nene cried, dropping to her knees and bending over me.

"Oh God, Yume…" I heard Mom say to herself, totally in disbelief.

I opened my eyes slowly, waves of pain traveling throughout my injury-riddled body. Had I just been dreaming when the Boomer shot me? No, I learned. It was all too true. I learned that when I tried to move my legs.

"Can…can you get up?" Nene asked, dumbfounded by the fact that I was still conscious after all I'd been through this night.

I collapsed to the floor again, hollering with the intense pain that movement caused, the tears burning under my eyelids. "I…I can't…"

"You have to get up. Please," she begged, starting to cry.

"My leg's shot through!!" I screamed at her, the tears starting to run down my face. "I can't!!" I broke down right there and let the tears come, my body shaking with the sobs.

"Yume!!" Mom hollered, activating her jumpjets and starting to head towards me, when the Boomer suddenly elbowed her into the wall. She fell to the floor, but being berserk with rage, she instantly got up and tried to come to my side again.

"Don't…push yourself…" I moaned through my tears, trying to crawl towards her, but my leg wouldn't move worth shit. "Mom, don't…"

"You should listen to your half-dead friend over there," the Boomer said, kicking Mom in the stomach, which sent her to the floor.

"Mom," I cried, attempting to crawl on my arms towards her.

The Boomer took notice of me then, and even it almost looked dumbfounded. "Jesus, you're still alive?"

"Crazy as it sounds, yes," I responded, hardly believing it myself.

Linna jumped up at that moment, and using her Knuckle Bomber, punched the Boomer in the back of the head. It turned around and opened up its chest, firing its heat cannons at her. Linna hoarsely screamed as she was thrown back into a pile of rubble. Nene and I watched in total disbelief as the Boomer calmly turned back in our direction and strided towards us. _This thing…it can't be invincible! It's a Boomer! There must be a way to kill it…!_, I thought, every wound on my body throbbing with the thought of taking any more punishment.

Nene, trembling all over, stood up to defend me. "She's had enough!" she yelled. "This is enough!! Stop it!!"

The Boomer looked down its nose at her, and sneered. "Are you trying to tell me what to do? Not very wise if you want to live."

"Nene…you're the only person who's still standing," I groaned, pushing on my right leg and scooching on my arms towards them. "You wanna be like the rest of us…or what?"

She stood there and contemplated my question for a few seconds, then quickly stepped away and bent down towards me again.

"You're right," she whispered. "You can't get yourself out of here, but…the Boomer's probably gonna kill us if we try to run, so…do we have any other choice?"

"Don't…worry about me," I said. "I'll be…fine."

"You heard her," the Boomer interrupted, then charged at her. Nene screamed and took a few more steps back, not seeing anywhere to run.

"Nene!!" I hoarsely called out to her as the Boomer grabbed her by the arms and rammed her through the wall. I laid there and gaped for a few seconds, then laid my head down on the ground, starting to cry again. How were we gonna get out of here now?! Everybody was either unconscious or unable to get away on their own now.

"How…how…?" I asked myself, the tears running down my face freely again.

"Oh, don't cry, little girl," the Boomer taunted as it came back towards me. "You'll be dead in a few minutes anyway, so what does anything matter now?" It bent down and picked me up by the throat, then slammed me against the wall, still holding me.

"You're…right," I said, starting to chuckle a little bit, in spite of the situation I was in. "I'm probably going to die here, but…the others…they're still alive. And when they come to…and see my dead body here…they're gonna kick your ass."

"You seem so sure of that," it responded, starting to tighten the grip on my throat. I gasped in surprise, but still continued.

"Doesn't…matter…if I die here anyway. Everyone dies eventually, right? …Even Boomers like…you hafta run down sooner or later." I started wheezing from the lack of air. "Either way…somebody's gonna…die here tonight…be it you or me…" My leg was screaming with the pain of being dangled in the air, along with the rest of my body. The wound on my stomach still bled quite a bit, in spite of Mom's effort to stop the bleeding, and I could feel the warm blood running down my leg as well.

"What…are you looking at?!" I spat, a little nervous at how the Boomer was looking at me.

"Your blood," it said, grinning, referring to the blood that ran down the bridge of my nose and onto my cheek from a cut above my eyebrow. "It and your eyes are the same shade of red." The Boomer leaned its hideous face towards me and stuck out its tongue. I gasped and squeezed my eyes shut as it licked up the stream of blood. The moment it finished, I took a deep breath and spat right in its face.

The Boomer wiped away the spit with the back of its hand. "Insolent bitch," it said, and then I felt my head snap to the side as the Boomer backhanded me. I felt something jiggle around in my mouth, along with more blood buildup, and when I spat again, out came four of my teeth. At the same time, I could practically feel the spot under my eye start swelling up.

"Surely…that's not all you've got," I taunted, the right side of my face extremely sore now. "You…coulda taken off my head…if you wanted to."

"Yes," it agreed, "but there's no fun in that." Suddenly, I felt my wind pipe get completely closed off as the Boomer tightened the hold it still held on my throat. I gasped for air, but I couldn't get anything in. Raising up my right fist, I pounded weakly on the Boomer's arm, trying to get it to let go, but of course, with as weak as I was by this point, the move was futile. The Boomer just laughed at my attempts to get free and grinned. How very ironic this was. After having my abdomen cut open, my faceplate broken, getting stomped on, and getting shot in the leg, here I was, getting ready to die by asphyxiation!!

My lungs burned like crazy for want of oxygen, and after what seemed like an eternity, my vision started to blur, and my pounding on the Boomer's arm became weaker. I was trying my very hardest to stay conscious, but now, my whole body was ready to just give out.

_I'm sorry, you guys,_ I thought, squeezing my eyes shut and preparing for it all to end. _I tried to help you…but I couldn't… I'm sorry…_

And then, my ray of hope decided to show itself at that moment. A sudden explosion rang out through the air as a green hardsuit slammed her Knuckle Bomber into the back of the Boomer's head, followed by a lasersword being slashed into its shoulder. Caught off guard, the Boomer suddenly released the grip it had around my throat, and I went dropping to the ground.

* * *

I made it to the Boomer just in time for it to let go of Yume. As she dropped, I leaped and caught her in my arms. I sighed with relief when I looked at her. She was unconscious, and was stark white from all the blood loss, but at least she was still breathing, for now.

"Nice…maneuver there," I remarked as Linna and Sylia jumped away from the Boomer, cradling Yume in my arms.

"Is Yumeko all right?" Sylia asked, snapping her head towards me.

"She's passed out," I said, wincing with the pain that flared up in my leg from the extra weight it had to bear.

"Run!" Linna yelled, bracing for the next attack as the Boomer turned around. "Hurry up!! Neither of you are gonna last here!!"

"Run…" the Boomer imitated, the orange fluids gushing from the gaping wound in its shoulder. "Your purple comrade there didn't run."

"She COULDN'T run," I muttered to myself, forcing myself not to look at the wound in my daughter's leg; it was too painful to look at, let alone imagine what kind of pain she must've been in, let alone combined with her other injuries.

"Ugh…" I heard someone say behind me. I looked behind me and saw Nene stumbling through one of the holes in the wall.

"You ok?"

"No," she groaned, holding her right elbow.

"Well, well, little Pinky's still up, too," the Boomer sneered.

Sylia looked at Nene, Yume, and me. "Go!!" she yelled.

We just stood there, saying nothing. How were we supposed to get away, anyway? It wasn't like we were in running shape at the moment.

"I…can take Yumeko," Nene suddenly said, looking at me. "Your leg can't handle any extra weight."

"You can't hold her with only one good arm," I retorted. "I'll take care of Yume, you just worry about yourself." Yume had jumped in to try to save us; the least I could do was ensure that she herself would get out alive, too.

"I suppose you girls want to fight to the end, eh?" the Boomer interrupted, popping out its own lasersword. "I'm game." I took a step back, clutching Yume in my arms. I wasn't going to let her get killed here if I could help it. Taking another step back, I started to turn and run with her when the Boomer opened up its chest and fired its heat cannon at me. The force slammed into my back, and I was sent to the floor, taking Yume with me.

"Priss!!" both Nene and Linna yelled, stunned.

"No one is running," the Boomer said, closing up its chest again. Nene started to tremble in fear as Linna and Sylia just stood there, contemplating their next moves. I slowly sat up, still holding Yume in my arms.

"So much for that idea," I groaned, wincing at the pain in my back. Then, I heard a low moan come from the girl I was cradling, and I looked down at her.

"Yume…!" I exclaimed as she slowly opened her eyes.

"I can't…take any more of this…" she moaned, chuckling slightly.

"I'll get you out of here, don't worry," I promised, slowly standing up, still holding her.

"Oh, how touching," the Boomer said dryly, observing the scene.

"It's…still alive…?" Yume groaned when she saw the Boomer. "Damn…" Her shoulders shook as she started to sob again, hanging her head.

"You're willing to die to save everyone else, right?" the Boomer asked, looking at all of us. "Well, I can arrange that."

"What's he…?" Linna wondered, starting to tremble a little bit herself. Sylia suddenly jumped back in surprise, and I saw why: the Boomer's eyes were glowing very strangely, like it was about to attack.

"RUN!!" Sylia bellowed to the rest of us.

"Why?" Nene asked, wondering why Sylia was suddenly so panicky. Then, she got her answer. We suddenly heard a loud booming noise, and at the same time, the ground suddenly jerked. We all jumped in surprise, then a few seconds later, an intense heat began to build rapidly in the room.

"Oh SHIT," I said when I realized what the Boomer had done.

"What…is it?" Yume asked, barely conscious.

"…Oh no," Nene said when she realized it too. Almost simultaneously, we all started to run for our lives, Nene, Linna, and me using our jumpjets, Sylia using her flight wings. As I leaped away with Yume, I heard the Boomer bellow, "It's too late!!"

It turned out to be right, for a split-second later, a huge booming noise filled my ears as everything suddenly turned white, and suddenly, I was forced up into the air. I held on as tightly as I could to Yume, but she ended up being ripped out of my arms.

"MOM!!" she screamed, reaching out to me as she was swept away.

"YUMEEE!!" I screamed back, doing the same thing before everything went black.

* * *

I opened my eyes slowly, every little spot on my body aching with pain. I blinked a few times as I tried to remember what happened. The Boomer had shot Yume…then it was strangling her…but what had happened after that? I tried to get up, but found myself pinned down by rubble. Then, it hit me: the Boomer had blown up the convention center. But luckily, it hadn't accomplished its agenda: to kill us. At least, that's what I was hoping, because at the moment, for all I knew, I was the only one left alive.

"Hey," I groaned into the comm, "anyone still alive out there?"

"Priss…?" I heard Nene groan; I assumed she was in much the same situation as me. "Oh, thank God. I thought I was the only one left."

"So you don't know if anyone else is alive?"

"I could scan for their life signs, but my ECM system is damaged."

"Try anyway."

"Ok." After what seemed like an eternity, she responded, this time a little more optimistic. "Well, Sylia and Linna's life signs are good."

"What about Yume?!" I asked, frantic. If anything had happened to her…

"…Well, her life signs are on the low side…but she's still alive."

I sighed; at least the worst hadn't come to pass. "Can you scan for their locations?"

"Yeah, but you can too, can't you?"

"My faceplate's cracked, so I couldn't if I wanted to." I sucked in a breath; it was hard to breathe with all the rubble on top of me. The only thing keeping me from being completely crushed was my hardsuit, and even then, it was straining to keep itself from capsizing on me.

"Ok, I found them. Yumeko is about thirty-six meters to your left, Linna's about fourteen meters from me – owie!! – and, um, Sylia is…heading in your direction!!"

"Well, thank God," I groaned, and a second later, I felt part of the rubble get pushed off of my back. "That you, Sylia?"

"I'll have you out in a second, Priss. Just stay still," she ordered, attempting to lift another large piece of rubble off me.

"Do I have a choice?" I replied sarcastically as I felt some more of the heavy weight on my back ease when Sylia lifted off another piece.

"Ok, you should be able to get up now." I very slowly eased my way up to my hands and knees, and yelled in pain when I leaned on my left arm for support. Sylia bent down and helped me up.

"Thanks," I said, putting my hand to my collarbone. "I have to find Yume!"

"Easy, now," she said, holding me back when I started to run towards where Nene had said she was. "You're badly injured yourself, you know."

"Screw that! I hafta find her!!" I activated my jumpjets and leaped towards about where Yume was, and started trying to lift any rubble that I could, only to holler in pain when I tried to lift with my left arm.

"God damn it!!" I cursed, tossing aside a slab of rubble and moving on to another. "Yume!!" I yelled to her as loud as I could. "Can you hear me?!"

No answer. Getting more frantic, I started lifting faster, and even though I was in terrific agony by now, I couldn't let the pain stop me from finding Yume. _C'mon, say something, kid,_ I thought, starting to get scared.

"Heeeey!!" I heard Linna holler from a short distance away. "Could somebody help me over here?"

"Keep looking for Yumeko," Sylia said, opening her flight wings and heading in Linna's direction. "I'll dig Linna out!"

I nodded acknowledgment and kept digging, my whole body numb from the pain that wracked it. My hands started to shake as I feared that I would never find Yume in all of this damn rubble. And then, it happened. I saw an armored hand sticking out of the rubble.

"Yume!!" I exclaimed, starting to dig in a frenzy, even though by now, my left shoulder was so stiff that I could hardly move that arm. "C'mon, speak to me, girl. Can you move?"

The only response I got was a groan.

I lifted up another slab of concrete and tossed it to the side, then bent down and moved some smaller chunks out of the way. Once Yume's arms were uncovered, I grabbed them and dragged her out from under the slabs that were still on top of her. Bending down, I lifted up my visor, took her in my arms, and just held her, tears running down my face.

"Yume, wake up," I said, gently shaking her. "C'mon, Yume. Open your eyes." I looked down at her, looking for any sign of life. Blood was running down her chin from the corner of her mouth, and cuts covered her face, some bleeding, some not. Her skin was so pale that I feared that she had bled to death underneath the rubble. I shook her again, the tears from my eyes coming faster. "Please, Yume…! C'mon!!"

Finally, after what seemed like forever, she squeezed her eyes, then very slowly opened them, letting out a weak moan. "Wh…"

I sighed in relief. "Don't scare me like that."

She looked up at me and smiled softly. "Didn't mean…to…"

"We're gonna get out of here, ok? As soon as Mackie gets here, we're gonna get you to the hospital and get you treated, all right? Can you try to hang in there a little longer for me?"

"I've…made it this…far, right?" she said, chuckling, although it looked like it hurt her just to do that. "I'm…so sorry, Mom…I tried to save you all…but I ended up just…just…making things worse."

I shook my head. "You did what you could, don't put all the blame on yourself. I guess…I was trying to see if I could kill that Boomer by myself, maybe that's why I hesitated to call you for help."

"Looks like…I took enough of a…beating for all of us, huh."

"Yeah…"

I heard Mackie drive up in the equipment van about a block away. "You ok?!" I heard him yell when he spotted us.

"Hurry up!!" I yelled to him. "Yume's in bad shape!!"

"Nah," she said, getting a very strange look in her eyes. "I'm ok…you don't need to worry about me…" She started to close her eyes, and I shook her hard to try to keep her awake.

"Keep your eyes open," I ordered. "Stay with me here. Don't close your eyes."

"I feel tired…" she breathed, looking over my shoulder at nothing in particular. "I want to go to sleep…"

"No you don't!" I barked, shaking her again. "Keep your eyes open, damn it!!"

Yume shook her head slowly, looking very dazed. "Mom…I'll be all right…don't worry…Aunt Nene, and Linna, and Sylia, they'll be fine too…we'll be just fine…" She smiled gently, then closed her eyes and slumped against my chest. I felt a cold shiver run down my spine when she did.

"Yume…c'mon!!" I said, shaking her gently. "Wake up, Yume! Hang in there a little longer!!"

"Priss!!" Mackie yelled, stopping the van a few meters from us. "Let's go!! Sis!!" he yelled over my shoulder to her and the others. "Linna! Nene! C'mon, let's move it!!"

For the moment, I remained kneeled on the ground, cradling my teenage daughter in my arms, mumbling a prayer that she would come out of this all right. She was all I really had; I couldn't stand the thought of losing her like this.

I looked up to the sky, looking for a star of hope, or something, but only the black sky greeted me back.


End file.
